Means of Production
by DCFanatic4life
Summary: Chris was bored sitting there in the production truck, watching boring promos...until she walked in...Chris/Steph...
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own the people or the characters in this story. The characters belong to the WWE and the people own themselves.

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**A/N: Yes, yes, another one, I know. Anyways, this is probably only going to be a 2-parter, I'm almost positive that'll be the case. Anyways, I got this idea from one of Chris's Twitter posts where he said he was in the pretape room. Just kind of based it off that. I hope that you enjoy it and let me know what you think, reviews are awesome and much appreciated, be brutal if you want, thanks. :)

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Chris climbed the steps of the production truck. He had a lot of things to focus on for tonight. He had yet to meet with Rey to discuss their match and if they planned on having the match of the night (Chris had called this the night before when a bunch of them went out for drinks) they were going to need to meet up and talk about their match. He wanted to plan it out somewhat, just to know what was going on. But first things first, they had asked him to come to the production truck to dub over some lines he'd said from his promos about Rey for some video. He'd wondered if this could wait, but apparently it was urgent so he was needed immediately.

He walked inside and saw one other person sitting there. He sat down and watched them as they were working on something with The Miz. Chris watched for a moment, scoffing at the level of ineptitude demonstrated by the young up-and-comer, if Chris could even call him that. He could envision Miz crashing and burning like so many before him. Chris didn't see "it" when he watched Miz's promos, but that was just him.

"Hey, man, are you almost ready for me, I've got things to do," Chris said, trying not to sound impatient, but he knew that's how he was coming across. But he had to face it, he was pretty ticked off with sitting here when he could be doing something actually productive like warming up for his match.

"Yeah, sorry," the guy said. "We just need to finish this."

"What is this even for? Is it a pre-match thing?" Chris wondered.

"Actually no, it's like a retrospective thing for your feud with him, I think it'll probably air on SmackDown or just as a general promo," the guy, okay, Chris would call him by his name, Andy, said.

"So you couldn't wait until I wasn't busy?"

"Orders," Andy shrugged.

"Fine," Chris sighed as Andy went back to his work. Chris, bored, decided to take to his Twitter account to express his now active dislike for The Miz, since his stupid and boring promos were now keeping him from his job. Andy started to get up and Chris looked up from his phone and over at him, "Hey, where are you going?"

"I've got to go drop this off," Andy said and then added, "I was called by my boss, I won't be long, I don't think."

"You don't _think_?" Chris said.

"Sorry," he said before leaving.

Andy was just down the steps when Stephanie came over to him, "You haven't seen Chris Irvine, have you?"

"Yeah, he's in there," Andy said, jerking his thumb towards the production truck.

"Thanks," Stephanie called over her shoulder as she almost ran up the steps and threw open the door.

"That was quick," Chris said absently, then looked over his shoulder at Stephanie. "Oh, it's just you."

"Yeah, nice to see you too," Stephanie rolled her eyes. "I've been looking everywhere for you, do you know that?"

"If I had known that, I probably would've stayed in one spot so you could actually find me," Chris said. "But since I didn't, I just stayed where I was."

"Funny," Stephanie said, though there was nothing very funny about what Chris had said. "There's been a last minute change to the show involving you."

"Last minute change, well that's a surprise."

"Shut up," Stephanie told him, sitting down next to him. "We at first thought about putting Edge in the title match, but it just seems...well, stupid to give that away right now, so we came up with a tag match. Well, putting Edge into the Tag Team Championship match, but in order for that to happen, he needs a partner."

"E&C?" Chris asked, wondering what this had to do with him.

"Well, a variation of that, yes," she said, grinning over at him and in the 10 years he had known Stephanie, nothing good ever came from that grin. There were many nights when she'd give him that grin and he'd end up doing something crazy or trying to drink someone under the table. Nobody knew just how well Stephanie McMahon could hold her liquor.

"I don't like that grin, get that grin away from me," he said, reaching out to push her shoulder. The chair she was on had wheels and he actually pushed her father away. She scowled at him and scooted back over, her flats scraping against the carpeted surface.

"Chris, it's good stuff, I promise."

"You know, this is like the second time you've had me working two matches on one show, but do I get a bonus for this, no, no I don't," he told her. He had gleaned onto the fact that Stephanie was trying to tell him he was going to be in the tag team match tonight.

"But you get belts out of it," she told him, hoping to entice him.

"Okay so I'm winning the tag belt then?"

"Yeah," she said, "it'll be a little pick-me-up after losing the IC title, right?"

Chris chuckled. "Look, you know I do what's asked of me, you don't have to go into the whole spiel. Of course, seriously, two matches in one night."

"Randy and Paul have to do three matches," Stephanie said. "They're not complaining."

"Paul's not complaining, I think it's time we alert the press because this _has_ to be the first time he's never complained about anything," Chris said sarcastically, knowing it would get a rise out of Stephanie like it always did. He couldn't help it if he hated her husband. He still couldn't figure out why Stephanie would choose to give herself over to that man for the rest of eternity. Chris figured hell would be a welcome change from marriage to Paul.

"Shut up," Stephanie said. "He wasn't complaining at all. He's even losing tonight."

"I saw, I'm surprised he didn't make you make him champion again."

"He earns those," she defended.

"Oh of course, of course," Chris said, fiddling with his phone.

"Why must you _always_ make fun of him?" Stephanie asked. "I know you two have had bad blood, I know this, but you know I'm married to the guy and yet you are constantly poking fun at him. Do you remember this is the guy I love here?"

"Love?" Chris scoffed. "That guy wouldn't know love if it hit him with Susie the sledgehammer right in that face of his. And I always make fun of him because the guy has had it out for me since the second I walked into this place. Whereas you were trying to be my friend the entire time. That's probably where his stupid jealousy thing comes from."

"I'm not discussing this with you anymore. We're never going to agree on him."

"No, we're not, not until you see the truth of the matter, not until you see that he's just using you and has been since forever. How do you not see it, Stephanie! How do you not see what he's doing to you!"

"He's not doing anything to me! When will _you_ see that he's not a horrible person?" she snapped at him.

"Whatever," Chris said, ending this argument because it always ended the same way. "Think of him what you want."

"I will," she told him, staring straight ahead. "Look, I know he's not the best of guys all the time, I know this."

"He's using you," Chris said dully.

"You don't know that."

"And if I did? If I had concrete evidence that he was. If I had videotape of him saying that he was using you, audio evidence, all of that, would you believe me then? Because believe me, I could get it right now if you wanted it," Chris told her.

"Don't say things like that," she told him, leaning back in her chair.

"He's probably cheating on you."

"Now you're just making up lies."

"Sure I am."

They stopped talking for a few moments. Stephanie was fiddling with some of the knobs on the equipment in front of her. Chris had gone back to looking at his phone, messing around with the buttons on it, checking his text messages, going over his contacts list. Neither one spoke a word and didn't even look at each other. Paul was always a point of contention with them. Chris disliked the guy, maybe even hated him. He couldn't reconcile being Stephanie's friend and his dislike of Paul, which often set off these arguments. Oftentimes, he thought it would just be easier to stop being friends with Stephanie, but she was just too fun and too nice for him to drop as a friend.

"What are you doing in here anyways?" she finally asked, breaking the silence.

"They wanted me to dub some stuff," he explained.

"So where is everyone?"

"Andy was supposed to be back soon, but I think he got lost or something."

"Here, I'll just do it for him," Stephanie said, grabbing a nearby clipboard and flipping through it until she got where she needed to be. "Okay, here's what we need you to say."

"Only you would know how this stuff works," Chris told her.

"I make it a point to know everything around here," she replied. "You know I've gotten trained in pretty much all the aspects of production. Okay, so do you want to go ahead and put those headphones on?"

"Yeah, sure," he said, putting the headphones on and pulling the microphone in front of him towards his mouth. Stephanie put a finger to her lips and started pushing some buttons and then she signaled him to say the first line. He did so and Stephanie stopped recording and played it back. He could hear it in his headset and it sounded fine.

Stephanie pulled off her headphones and then started pushing more buttons. "That was fine. I think she probably just wanted you to overdub these lines because they didn't want the crowd noise in the background. Okay, before we start the next one, I think I want to try that one with a little more echo to it, just to see the effect, can you get the button right there?"

Chris reached out, but his hand stopped, not knowing which one she meant. Stephanie saw his hesitation and just started to reach over to press it when Chris realized which one it was by the label on it and he reached for it as well. Their hands converged and both hit the button at the same time. Their hands lingered for a moment, but then they pulled back like they were being scalded and both put their hands in their laps, Chris becoming fascinated with his phone once again and Stephanie flipping through the production clipboard for something she didn't know yet.

Touching was a no-no with them, a big one. Every time they touched, something happened. Yes, it was stupid to think that every time they touched something happened, but it seemed that way. There had been moments of impropriety that were never spoken of after they happened. They liked their lives and when they had those small moments of...whatever it was, they always felt like they were being pulled into some alternate reality. So touching was a no-no. They'd made sure of that. They were supposed to have a storyline wherein Stephanie was going to be with Chris and turn heel, but the second the two had heard about it, the protests rose to the heavens and nobody could figure out why two very good friends would be so very against an idea where they would have the chance to work their magic together.

"Sorry," Chris mumbled.

"My fault, I didn't tell you what button it was," Stephanie mumbled back, rubbing her hand now, like it stung, like Chris's skin were made of thorns and they had scratched their way under her skin.

"I should get--" They said at the same time, both standing up and Stephanie turning to her left while Chris turned to her right and they bumped right into each other, Chris getting up so fast that he started to knock Stephanie back. As she fell, she tried to grasp something and the nearest thing being Chris, she grabbed at his shirt, getting fistfuls of cotton as Chris started to topple over her.

She gasped as her butt hit the chair and then squealed in shock as Chris's form was growing in her vision. Suddenly he was right there in front of her and his hands were on either side of her. He managed to land his hands on the arms of the chair so he didn't crush her entirely, but he was still hovering very close over her. She looked up and all she could see was Chris's face right by hers. She was breathing heavily from the shock and it seemed he was doing the same. She tried not to look in his eyes, but they were right there. His head was a little to the right of her own and if she turned she could see his profile. If she turned she could kiss him in the corner of the mouth. If she turned, he might turn as well and capture her lips in a kiss. They'd turned before too many times, too many times to count so she couldn't turn, she _shouldn't_ turn.

She turned.

She pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. His head turned to hers, like he'd been resisting the urge before not to turn his head and kiss her. Why did they always give in though? Why had this scene been repeated every time? She didn't care as the questions flew out of her head and his lips were flush against hers. She moved her arms up and pulled him closer, so he was almost covering her fully. It was an uncomfortable position for him, she knew, but he wasn't complaining so she wouldn't either.

Eventually they had to pull apart and Stephanie bit her lip, slightly swollen from him nipping at it. "That shouldn't have happened."

"No, it shouldn't have," he said, but he sounded less than sorry that it had.

"We...need to...the recordings...get that done so you can go, um, you should probably talk to Edge," she told him. "Maybe to get the match in order."

"Yeah, I should do that," he told her, but he still hadn't moved and his mouth was calling her again. She loved when his soft lips were smashed against hers and the heat from his body encircled her own, wrapping it up and tucking her body against his. They'd never fully let themselves devolve, but they'd come so close so many times before. Every time would get a little worse and she knew, if this happened again, they might just let themselves fall.

He turned and he was going to pull away, but he kissed her again and he couldn't help it because his subconscious knew she wanted it. He started to stand up, his lower back aching from the position he was in. She stood up with him, her leg between his legs and she was pressing her thigh into him. Chris groaned against her mouth, even the slightest contact from her seemed to elicit this extreme reaction. She loved the power she had over him at the moment and pressed herself harder against him and she received another groan as a reward.

She started to lean him back and his hands splayed across the equipment and his ass pressed a button it probably shouldn't have, but neither one noticed as Chris's right hand was busy running up and under her shirt. The button that Chris had so erroneously pressed (he'd actually pressed a few, one of them being a universal mute button, which turned off all the microphones) was the button that led to a video feed of the production truck to broadcast on every closed circuit television set up around the arena.

As Chris and Stephanie were making out, televisions all over the arena were flicking to a grainy black and white image of two people making out backstage. The only fortunate thing was that the sound was off and they couldn't be heard, but people were stopping and looking at what was going on. Some were snickering, trying to figure out just who the two people were since the angle they were being filmed at mostly gave them Chris's back. People were starting to take bets on who it was and cursing whenever that person walked up to see what was going on.

Chris rolled over a little more and the sound came back on as he muttered, "Stephanie..."

Near the gorilla, everyone's head turned sharply as they looked at Paul, who had been standing near the back, laughing and snickering along with everyone else. Then their heads turned back to the monitor in front of them now knowing that the person making out with Stephanie McMahon right now was not her husband. The whispers were even louder and nobody wanted to look at Paul's reaction to this turn of events.

The person with Stephanie was moving their head, turning to kiss down her neck, his face turned to the camera and people gasped as they saw Chris Irvine kissing Stephanie's neck. It was then Stephanie looked up as her mouth was unoccupied and saw all the screens in the production truck were focused on her. She pushed Chris away quickly and he turned to look at her, but her eyes were focused on something behind her. He turned and saw his own body as it was right there. Stephanie's mouth was dry, but she managed to utter one thing.

"Oh my God."


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Wow, thanks for all the reviews for this story, I was so happy you all seemed to like it since I just kind of winged it. Anyways, I know I said it would almost positively be a two-parter, but if you know me, you know how hard that is for me to write short stories so yes, this is being extended, probably by one chapter, maybe two, but no more...hopefully no more...anyways, it's not over yet and I don't know how long it'll be, I'm just riding the wave. Anyways, please keep reviewing and enjoy! :)

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"Oh my God."

The refrain was right on his lips as well as he stared back at himself, which was staring at himself. All the screens were filled with his face and it was like he couldn't even see Stephanie's face or body or the production truck. All he could see was his horror-stricken face looking back at him, like it was mocking him, there, frozen in time, staring back accusingly. Cheater, adulterer, liar...

"Get up, get up," Stephanie said, grabbing him by the collar and pulling him off the console. He didn't know where she got her sudden burst of strength but it nearly propelled him forward into the wall. He caught himself and turned as she looked down at the buttons that he had been sitting on. "Oh no...oh no..."

"What? What is it?" he asked, but he already knew. He was praying that she would shoot down his ideas, tell him that he'd just turned on the televisions here and they could both leave this now exceedingly small trailer and go in different directions and never speak of this again...and certainly never touch again. The only way he was going to touch Stephanie from now on was with a Hazmat suit.

"You hit the button...you hit the button for the closed circuit television," Stephanie said. "You hit the button that put this camera all over the arena."

Chris buried his face in his hands. "So the chances of nobody seeing that?"

"No chance," Stephanie said. "The televisions were already turned on for the show and well, the chances that everyone closed their eyes as that was going on are slim."

"Damn it," he said, trying to sound joking, but his stomach was churning. "Do you think...I mean, do you think that anyone...recognized us?"

"Of course they did, Chris," Stephanie sighed. "We're not exactly unrecognizable, you know. I mean, I don't know if you had it on mute, but if you didn't, you said my name and well, you saw your face on the screen, I think people would be able to see."

His wife was going to divorce him. She was somehow going to find out about this and she was going to divorce him. He blinked for a few seconds. Why wasn't that thought as scary as he thought it would be? He'd never really cheated on her. Sure, he'd had indecent thoughts about Stephanie a lot. He'd kissed her before, yes, and sometimes, when he was making love to his wife, he pictured Stephanie, but he'd never had sex with Stephanie so why was the idea of his wife divorcing him not registering as a devastating event in his mind? Surely it _would_ be devastating.

"Damn, damn, damn," Stephanie said, running her fingers through her hair. "Why can't I just erase everyone's memories?"

Chris almost laughed at that, but this was no time for laughter. "Maybe the TV's weren't on, you know, since the show hasn't started."

"They're on, I know they're on," Stephanie said. "We have them on at least two hours before the show starts, for tests and what not, we do cues...everything, they're on, all over the arena and everyone saw us and they probably think I'm a slut."

"You're not a slut."

"Try telling that to the entire company who probably just saw me making out with you."

"Sorry," he mumbled.

Suddenly, Stephanie's walkie-talkie garbled to life a string of static breaking the awkward air between them. "Stephanie?"

Stephanie picked it up, "Shane?"

"Yeah, it's me, uh...hey, I'm not going to judge on your life or anything, since whatever you want to do is what you want to do, but um, yeah, Paul saw what you were doing and I'm pretty sure he's headed for production so you better have a good story or a good attorney or a good doctor because he was pissed off, like I've never seen him before."

"Oh no," Stephanie breathed. "Thanks, Shane."

She turned off the walkie-talking quickly and ran to the only door of the production truck. If he was out there now, there was no escape. This wasn't a normal trailer, it had no windows to crawl out of; if Paul was out there, they would be caught for sure and Shane would be right, they would need a really good doctor. Stephanie peeked out of the door, only opening it a crack in case Paul was right on the other side and could see her. There was nothing though and she took just a moment to sigh before she grabbed Chris's hand, ignoring the way his touch was like a heater against her skin, spreading it's warmth slowly and richly up her arm.

"We've got to go," Stephanie said, not wanting to confront Paul just yet. She just didn't want to face him in this dark, dank place. She'd rather be out in the open...where people could see...where weapons of defense could be easily gathered.

"Where are we going?" Chris asked, trailing behind her.

"I don't know, just away from here," Stephanie said, pulling him along.

"I don't know this is the best course of action we have here," he told her. "Maybe if we just explained what happened...how it was accident..."

"Do you understand who we're dealing with here?" she asked, stopping so abruptly he nearly ran into her. "Paul saw _me_, his _wife_, kissing another man. Do you get the magnitude of this? He is going to rip you limb from limb before he will even begin to calm down."

"I can take him."

"Imagine going home and finding your wife in bed with another man, how would that make you feel, Chris?"

He thought about it and once again, the feelings weren't as strong as he expected them to be, but to appease Stephanie, he said, "Yeah, that would be bad."

"Yes, so maybe if we give Paul enough time to cool down we can tell him some bogus story. Like it was all a storyline we were practicing for."

"You're not on TV though."

"I'll go on TV if I have to," she responded to him and he didn't argue any more as he was pulled along the corridor. "Keep an eye out for him."

Stephanie looked keenly from side to side, ignoring the looks and catcalls they were getting from various people. They were nothing to her right now but gnats buzzing in her ear. She was being pursued by a wasp, she didn't have time for these people. She didn't see him anywhere, but he had to have reached the production truck by now and realized they were no longer there and decided to come look for them. Time was of the essence now and she had to be on the lookout.

"Are you watching?"

"Yes, I'm watching, though I really think we should just--"

"Oh my God," Stephanie gasped, pulling him into the nearest room, which happened to be a woman's bathroom, an empty one though, thankfully. "He'd just rounded the corner. He won't look in here because you're not a girl."

"Thanks for the heads up," Chris said as Stephanie locked the door. "He will find us, you know."

"I know, but I need to be _ready_ to speak with him."

"Ready?" Chris wondered. "You just tell him we were practicing for a storyline, it's fine, foolproof, you can actually _make_ the storyline happen so nobody will be the wiser. It's a great plan. Running away at this point makes it look like we're making it up."

"We _are_ making it up!" she yelled, then covered her mouth, like Paul would bust through the door and make a Paul-sized hole in it while throttling Chris.

"Not if you make it happen."

"This is a nightmare," she said, covering her face.

Chris's heart kind of hurt at the moment. He walked over to her and gently removed her hands from her face. He gave her the best smile he could muster at the moment and grasped both her hands in his, rubbing the backs of them with his thumb, little circles going round and round and round. She didn't try to pull away and he didn't try to let go. They just stood there for a moment and Stephanie looked up at him earnestly, wonder in her eyes at what he was going to say next.

"Everything will be fine."

"Nothing will be fine," she responded.

He smiled at her, "You're way too pessimistic, you know that, right?"

"Chris, I can't...you don't understand. He's going to be so mad and I don't really, truly know how to explain this and he's going to see through me and...what is _wrong_ with us!"

That was really what was weighing on her brain. She couldn't figure out what the hell was wrong with her and Chris. Why did it always end like this? Well, not like this, hiding out from her husband, but like this in the sense that she and Chris always fell in the same way. They avoided touching because it always led to this, but why did it lead to this? Why was there this pull that neither one could see or touch, but feel with such intensity that they were making out against a damn production console when common sense would tell them not to touch something as sensitive to that.

"I don't know," he admitted, letting go of her left hand as he reached his right to brush some of her hair out of her face. "I really couldn't tell you."

"This is stupid, we're stupid," she said, leaning against the sinks, pulling her hands free. Maybe touching him wasn't such a great idea at the moment, because the way his fingers were rubbing against her hand...well, she could picture those fingers rubbing against something else that would definitely not be her hand.

"We're not stupid."

"We're married...to other people!"

"Okay, we're a little stupid," he admitted, hoping to elicit a smile from her, but it only brought more panic, like his agreement was just another thing that betrayed Paul. Chris could care less if he was betraying Paul, in fact, if he could officially sign up for the job, he would. "Stephanie, come on, the man is probably already sleeping with three women behind your back."

"Stop saying that!" Stephanie said, shoving him in the chest as hard as she could, sending Chris back a little. "You don't know anything."

Now Chris was getting irritated. "I know a lot more than you think I know," he told her, hoping that would spurn a conversation where he could tell her that Paul was cheating on her and she would believe it and...then what? He wasn't sure what he wanted the end game to be. Did he want Stephanie? Was that the end game here?

"You know nothing."

"He just uses you to get to the title. He might as well be married to the goddamn thing. How much more time and effort does he put into that belt than he does into you? Tell me that."

"He pays plenty of attention to me," she said, trying to defend him.

"You over the belt? Tell me it's you over the belt, Stephanie. I would never put the belt over you, not for one single second, hell, I wouldn't even care if I never got the belt again."

"What are you trying to say? Are you trying to make comparisons, are you trying to make yourself look better by deriding him? What do you want from me, Chris? Do you want me, is that what you want? Huh?"

She shouldn't have said those words because Chris got a hungry look on his face, a hungry, predatory look on his face, like a mountain lion hunting down a deer. Chris didn't know what he really wanted or what he was really doing here, standing in a woman's bathroom with Stephanie leaning back enticingly over a group of sinks, a mirror right behind her, locked in because her husband was seeking blood, like a shark streaking through the waters. Stephanie's eyes widened slightly, her lips parting gently, a couple thin strands of saliva clinging to both top and bottom desperately before separating completely as Chris's lips crashed down on hers.

"Yes," he growled.

He still didn't know what was going to happen, but right now, he knew he wanted her.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Wow, I'm so surprised by the love for this story. I only meant it to be a one-shot and I'm so pleased that you all like it and thank you SO much for the reviews, I love them all. I hope you like this chapter, let me know what you think. :)

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Stephanie shouldn't have been surprised when he kissed her, but she was. Was it necessarily unwelcome? No, it wasn't. Chris found that she was very willing as she almost instantly parted her lips to press her tongue against his. Her arms came up to wrap around his next, pulling him over and she had to be uncomfortable, so he wrapped his own arms around her waist and pulled her into his body. His right hand broke free and went to her hip, tracing his hand up and down over the soft fabric of her pants. He wished she was wearing a skirt right now so he could slip his hand under and let the rough skin of his hand brush against what had to be a soft thigh.

There were no words being spoken, no coherent words at least. There was some soft mutterings on his part, words that strung together made no sense, but somehow, to his brain, they were words telling her that he really did want this and he wouldn't be able to stop. Even if Paul came in at this very moment, he wasn't sure he could stop kissing Stephanie. Paul would have to pull him off forcibly and even then, he might band his arms so tightly around her that she fell with him.

On her part, there were gentle moans and he took that as a good sign, a sign that what he was doing was okay and she wouldn't suddenly push him away and accuse him of seducing her or taking advantage of her. She wanted this as much as him. He could feel it when she bumped her hips against his, wanting more, wanting just what he wanted, but could he really do that with her in a bathroom in the middle of some random arena while her _husband_ was looking for her? The thought bothered him. It didn't bother him for the normal reasons, the reasons like she was married, he was married, this was wrong! No, it bothered him because Stephanie was a special, wonderful person and if he was going to sleep with her, she deserved better than for it to happen in a bathroom of all places.

He should have felt bad for having that thought, but as the night progressed, Jessica kept fading. She'd been vibrant in the beginning, a clear memory he could gaze at in his head. Then Stephanie and him completely crashed and now, every time he tried to picture Jessica, the picture got hazier and fuzzier and she was gone around the edges, like some faint ghost of the past, but he was still with her. Had he fallen out of love? Was he in love with Stephanie? It was all so confusing, but he knew that Stephanie deserved better than this.

"Steph...Steph," he said.

She must have thought he was moaning her name because she was doing something right because she didn't immediately answer. She pulled his face up and started kissing along his jaw. It was strange how she just seemed to instinctively know what he liked, like they'd been preparing for this moment for some time and she'd mapped out his body and made notes. He almost chuckled at the idea of Stephanie researching his body. If he had his way, she'd be doing a lot more than researching...what was wrong with him?

"Chris," she breathed as she nipped at his earlobe, tugging gently.

Chris pulled away. "Steph, we can't do this here."

She looked slightly hurt when she pulled back, her lips dark and slightly puffy from the intensity of his kisses. "You don't want me?"

"No," he clarified quickly, noting the adorable pout she got on her face when she said that. He brought his right hand up and traced her bottom lip with his finger, taking away the excess lipstick he himself had rubbed off while kissing her.

"So come here then," she said, grabbing his t-shirt by the sides and trying to pull him towards her.

"I just don't think we should be doing this in the _bathroom_," he said, gesturing around her. "I don't know about you, but I don't want our first time to be somewhere where people go pee and buy sanitary napkins."

Stephanie giggled and leaned forward to kiss him, "You're cute."

That made his insides warm and spread like slow-moving molasses. "You think so."

"Yeah, how could I not really," she said and then she kind of closed her mouth, like she shouldn't have said those things, like she should've kept the propriety up. "I mean, you know, you know you're really cute, you've got millions of girls pining after you."

"How would you know?" he asked.

"Because I'm not blind," she said, rolling her eyes.

"If you want me, what about Paul?"

It seemed she'd forgotten him when Chris kissed her. That made him swell up with pride a little bit. There was hope for her yet. He'd never actually found out why she married that goober in the first place. Paul was the worst possible type for her, not that he was saying he was the best possible type. He'd never been her type because her type wasn't usually married men until something broke inside them, like their cheating nerve had been completely destroyed. But still, if the outcome of whatever was happening here was her leaving Paul, he'd be happy with that.

"Oh," she said, "Paul..."

"Or Douchebag, as most of us like to call him," Chris added.

Stephanie pushed him lightly, "You do _not_ call him that."

"Are you kidding me? That's putting it lightly, let's face it, Stephanie, that guy is not real well-liked back here. If someone does claim to like him, it's just because he's a suck-up who wants to get further in the company...or Shawn."

She held in her laugh at that one. I take it she's been annoyed on more than one occasion by Paul's undying and unwavering friendship with Shawn. "I don't give him special benefits..."

"Of course you don't," Chris said sarcastically. "Stephanie, the guy's sole purpose here is to get the belts. He'd just as likely step over his own mother to get what he wanted. I can't stand him and I can't believe you do."

She looked away for a moment. "He's not as bad as everyone thinks."

"Please, yes he is," Chris said.

"Why are you so eager to bring him down? What has he ever done to you?" Stephanie wondered. Chris looked at her and tilted his head, like it should've been obvious all the things Paul had done to be a complete prick to Chris. He could list off every offense the other man had ever perpetrated towards him.

"Shall I list them chronologically or by importance?"

"Don't answer that, it's a moot point," she told him sulkily.

"First off, before I even came in the company he judged me because of his little friends in WCW. I know that when I came in, he tried to bring me back down, saying I didn't have 'the look' when I've certainly got more of 'the look' than he does. Or how about the time I proposed that amazing and completely legit storyline between the two of us back in 2002, remember that? How perfect would it have been for our characters to be sleeping together while Paul was gone? But nope, he couldn't look bad. Or how about the time when he _owed_ me the job for the WrestleMania match and yet, I had to job to him in the Hell in a Cell I _should_ have one. Or wait, how about the time when Cena, the rookie Cena who'd had like two matches, was supposed to slap Vince, but Paul comes swooping in and saying that's not believable and to slap me instead even though he had _nothing_ to do with the storyline. Or how about when I decided to come back and while you were supporting me, Paul was raging and laughing at me behind my back--"

"Okay, okay, I get it," she interrupted. "He's done a lot of stuff to you. Is this your way of retaliating. Is stealing me away or whatever it is we're doing, is that your revenge?"

"Like I'd stoop down to his level and actually aim for revenge. That'd just be playing into his plan," Chris scoffed. "He'd just go, 'Oh, look how childish Chris is being. I've never done anything to the guy and he decides to do this.'"

"That is not what he'd say."

"Listen to me, Steph, Paul bad man," he said, holding her by the shoulders.

"So having me, wanting me, it's not some sort of stick it to Paul?"

"No," he said, running a hand through his hair and wishing that he still had the long hair so he could delay the moment a little longer. "I know you feel it too, Steph, don't even lie. I know that you feel that there's always been something there between us. You've been my biggest supporter and I know it's because of this crazy...chemistry between us. I guess you can call it chemistry, I don't know, attraction, would that be a better word?"

"Why don't you use one of your big words, say that we have an amaranthine gravitation towards each other," she said smartly.

He smirked at her. "Do you feel it?"

"Well, let me see, I'm running away from my husband, hiding out in a woman's bathroom with the door locked making out with someone who is not my husband against a sink of all things, I'd say that there's some attraction there if I were to go through all the trouble of this."

"Then I don't want to have sex with you in a bathroom."

"You don't?"

"Stephanie, mind," he said, tapping her head, "Use it."

"Oh well, yeah, bathrooms usually aren't conducive to romance," she said. "What are we doing, Chris?"

"I'm not entirely sure," he admitted. "I mean, I just feel like I have to be with you, I just have to know what it's like before...before I decide anything."

"Anything..." she echoed. She was about to speak again when she heard a voice outside the locker room.

"Yeah, we'll catch up with you Beth, hold on, we're just going to check our makeup in the bathroom." Neither Stephanie or Chris recognized the voice, but they knew they were in trouble if they didn't do something right now. There were no other exits so Stephanie pointed to a stall and Chris rushed in there as Stephanie unlocked the door and rushed into the same stall.

"What did you come in here for?" he hissed at her.

"I don't know!" she hissed back.

"They're going to see two sets of feet," he told her. "They will tell Paul."

Stephanie did the only thing she could do and she jumped into Chris's arms, wrapping her legs around him. Chris's eyes widened. This was not going to work, they were going to have their cover blown and if they were found in a bathroom stall, the news would circulate in two minutes and everyone would think they were into risky sex all around the arena. Paul would invariably find them here and he'd be beaten up and Stephanie would probably be dragged away by her hair because Paul was a caveman like that and that's how they dealt with their women in all the cartoons.

"What are you doing?"

"I am not climbing on top of a toilet," she told him.

"I can't carry you the entire time."

"Are you saying I'm heavy?"

"Yes!" he said. "Anybody except a baby would be."

"Turn around, lean me against the door."

"Don't you think they'll see _male_ wrestling boots?" he asked.

"They're not going to look, that'd be weird."

"Oh, of course, because we don't want weird," he said sarcastically.

Nikki and Brie Bella walked in the bathroom and Stephanie did the only thing she could think of to shut Chris up since her hands were holding onto his for dear life. She kissed him. Chris almost let out a strangled gasp, but managed to hold it in. It wasn't a very good kiss, but it was effective. They just kept their lips pressed to each other's, their eyes still open and both of them off to the side as they listened to the twins at the mirror.

"I can't believe you didn't see them on the TV," one of them said. Their voices were too alike to tell them apart.

"I was in the dressing room, there are no TV's in there," the other one said. "I wish I could've seen it though, everyone is talking about it."

Chris and Stephanie's eyes turned towards each other. They were going to be in so much trouble, everyone knew their private business. "I know. Were you in the area where Paul was?"

"No, I wish I was though. I heard that everyone turned towards him and he absolutely freaked the hell out, like he threw things and nearly knocked the TV down. Can you imagine, you're like snickering along with everyone else and then suddenly, there's your wife and it's so not you with her!"

"I know, oh my God, slut," the other said and Stephanie frowned.

"Remind me to fire them," she whispered in Chris's ear.

"I know! I can't believe that. Oh well, it's not like anything is going to happen since she's the boss's daughter. I guess it's one of the perks being able to sleep with anyone here. Wonder what Chris wants from her when he can do so much better."

"I'd totally do him!"

Chris resisted the urge to smirk as Stephanie glared at him, like she knew what he was thinking. "I'd totally do him too!"

"Oh wow, he is hot."

"If you are so much as having a twin fantasy right now..." Stephanie told him.

"What? Me? No way," he whispered, shaking his head.

"And now nobody can find them, they're probably off having sex or something or hiding..."

"Or they ran away together!"

"Oh my God, totally, come on, let's go."

They left a moment later and Stephanie finally let go of Chris and stood in front of him. "Stupid twins."

"They weren't that bad."

"Oh shut up," she told him.

"Kiss me and I will," he teased.

"We've got to get out of here, it's unsafe."

"Okay," he said, "where to next?"

"I don't know, we've just got to hurry before someone else comes in. I think we should leave, just leave."

"Um, Stephanie, in case you've forgotten, I've got a match."

That was going to be a problem.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Thank you guys again for all the reviews. I'm amazed by the number of reviews for this one and genuinely thankful that you've all been enjoying it like you have. I hope you enjoy the chapter and let me know what you think in a review. Enjoy. :)

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Yes, that was going to be a problem.

"I didn't forget you had a match," she told him. "I know you have a match."

"Yeah, well, in case you haven't noticed, we're still in a bathroom and your husband is kind of after us seeking revenge."

"Well, wouldn't you be?" she asked. "Don't answer that, something tells me you wouldn't be...wait, of course you would be, because you've got a temper too."

"Well, considering I'm about to have sex with you or was about to have sex with you in a bathroom, I'm guessing that catching my wife in this position and getting mad at her would be pretty hypocritical of me, don't you think?"

"Then think back to before tonight," she told him.

He ended up thinking to before tonight. Had everything changed tonight? He would have to say yes because he didn't think Paul was a forgiving man and would forget what he saw. Chris didn't have a way to make him forget his memory short of hitting him over the head with a frying pan and he figured that was out of the question because where would he get a frying pan right now? Paul probably wasn't going to keep this to himself either. He'd probably tell Jessica. Chris didn't know how to feel about that. Yes, he'd pretty much disregarded her in the span of one night, but she would never forgive him for this and he didn't expect her to and if that thought didn't bring the stirring to his stomach, what did it say about him? Was he far too into Stephanie McMahon to even care?

"Okay, lost you there for a second," Stephanie said after a small slap to his face. "We have got no time, your match is early on the card, _why_ is your match so early on the card?"

"You tell me," Chris responded and she frowned. "I don't make up the card, Stephanie, that's something that management does and last time I checked, you were part of management so that means you gave me the early match."

"Well, I didn't think that I'd be making out with you in front of the entire company and then hiding out in a bathroom stall with you because the Wonder Twins had to check their makeup, stupid, vapid..."

"You're really cute when you're mad, has anyone ever told you that?"

"You think I'm...God, Chris, no time for this, your match is probably in a few minutes," she checked her watch. "I don't even know how long the first match is supposed to run. Okay, we've got to get you out there and then immediately following your match, we have got to hide again."

"Really? How are we going to do that?"

"I don't know."

"Why don't we just confront Paul?" he wondered.

"Are you nuts?" she said, staring him in the eyes like she was trying to find a sign of crazy in them. They had to be somewhere in there because the thought of going at Paul right now was crazy, seriously, just the nuttiest idea he could ever have. "Have you gone out of your mind?"

"Again, I am standing with you in a bathroom stall in the ladies bathroom because I kissed a married woman, which then got broadcast to everyone and every single person out there knows I did it too...oh my God, your father!"

Stephanie's eyes widened, "Oh my God! I didn't even think about my father. Not that he's exactly the most innocent man in the universe, what with the affairs—"

"Who did he have an affair with though, I'm really curious," Chris told her.

"Well, I don't like...no, we're getting off track again."

"Will you tell me later?"

That implied that there would be a later and she guessed there would be because she didn't think that they were going to get out of this any time soon. Everyone had seen them and part of the reason she was hiding was because she was embarrassed. It was one thing to be seen making out, that wasn't even that big a deal, she'd made out with Paul before in public. The problem lay in who she was making out with. That man was not her husband so it presented a kind of quandary. She didn't know how to explain. How could you really explain? Oh, hey, yeah, there's always been this weird kind of connection between me and Chris and we just gave in this time? She didn't think that would suffice.

"Stephanie?"

"What?" she said, looking up at him with doe eyes. He almost got lost in them again.

"Will you tell me later who your father had an affair with? If I can lord it over his head, I may have a chance for survival and a chance to keep my job because I don't think your father is going to be happy with me."

"He won't. He's so protective of me," she sighed, leaning back against the bathroom door. "But he is still only secondary to Paul. He's going to want to hurt you, seriously hurt you."

"Of course he is, I'm going to be the one impeding his way to the title from now on."

"What do you mean by that?" she asked.

"We can't go back now, Stephanie, we both want this," he told her, his voice turning serious. "You can't tell me you don't want this...don't tell me you don't want this..."

There was something almost desperate in his voice, like he was putting it all on the line for her. She didn't know what was going to happen, couldn't predict what they'd do in five minutes, ten, tonight, tomorrow, forever, but inside of her right now, there was something building. Something was taking claim of her and she could only imagine it was Chris. For so long she'd ignored what she felt because it wasn't "right." She'd met Chris and he'd already been taken. The entire time she'd known him, he had been taken. He was still taken, but the turning point was coming. She could feel it coming and she knew she'd have to make a choice and maybe...maybe that's really why she was running.

"I want this," she confessed to him, her throat tightening a little bit. It was an admission that there was something more at foot here than two people who had accidentally kissed. If they both wanted this, then there was no accident. "Your match..."

"How are we going to do this?" he wondered. He was about to say something more when he felt his phone vibrating in his pocket. He'd almost forgotten it was in there, the last time he'd looked at it was when he was telling people he was in the pretape room and oh how his life had changed. He didn't think telling people "hey, in a bathroom with Stephanie McMahon" would be a great idea right now. He pulled it out and checked it.

"Who is it?" Stephanie asked, trying to look over him and at the phone.

"Jay," Chris answered.

"What's it say?"

"Don't know where you are, Hunter is prowling, your match is in 3 minutes."

"Damn it," Stephanie said, covering her face. "Okay, I think 3 minutes is enough to get from here to the gorilla. You are going to haul ass out there and I am going to go in another direction because he can't catch both of us, right?"

"Uh, yeah, right," he said, almost literally seeing the wheels turning in Stephanie's head. He liked seeing a great mind at work.

"So you go out for your match and you lose and then I want you to not go up the ramp, you come out the right side, now that'll be the right if you're looking up the ramp, got it?"

"Okay, right side," he said, "and you'll be there."

"Yes, I'll be there, you've got nothing more to do tonight and I will just tell...I'll just tell Shane that we are going to leave and we'll hightail it out of..." Stephanie's phone buzzed this time. She picked it out of her pocket and looked at it. "It's Shane, he said that Chris better get his ass out here and that Hunter is waiting by the gorilla."

"So I have to wait until right when they're cuing up my music then because he can't touch me if I'm going to have my match. Even if your father is pissed at me, he doesn't want anything impeding the product."

"Yeah, he'd rather die than have anything interrupt the show. Okay, so we've got the plan."

"We've got the plan," he said.

Stephanie opened the stall and looked both ways, though she knew nobody was in there. She stepped out of the stall and then stood in the middle of the bathroom, looking around and formulating the plan in her head, solidifying it for herself. Chris watched her and then pushed some hair behind her back as she went to the door and pressed her ear against it, trying to listen for what was on the other side. Chris pressed himself against her as she listened and she laughed a little bit

"You know, I didn't know the Bella twins liked me so much," he whispered.

"Shut up, I swear to God, if you ever so much as look like you're having a twin fantasy, I'm breaking this off with you."

"Breaking this off, that implies that there's something to break off," he brought up, surprising her a little. She hadn't realized she said that.

"You're right," she said, "I guess let that be a warning to you for the future."

"So we have a future?" he asked hopefully.

"Chris, stop confusing me," Stephanie said. "I can't think of that right now when we have to get you out there for the match.

"Steph?" he asked.

"Chris, you now have like a minute and a half, we have _got_ to get out of here."

"Okay," he said. Stephanie stuck her head out the door and looked both ways.

"Do you know the way to the gorilla from here?"

"Yes," he said, being as familiar with the arena as he was. "I go left, so you're going right?"

"Yeah, okay, you ready?" she asked.

"I'm ready," he said, but then he wasn't exactly so ready. "Hold on."

"What?" she asked nervously.

He leaned in and pressed his lips gently against hers. It wasn't like the frenzied kisses they'd shared earlier. This one was sweeter, tender even. She closed her eyes and opened her mouth a little, deepening the kiss, but not by much. They weren't going to let themselves fall at just this moment, maybe later, maybe forever, but not right now. Chris pulled away first, his lips reluctantly removing themselves from Stephanie's soft ones. She had her eyes closed and she sighed contentedly.

"Needed that for luck," he whispered.

A smile graced her lips. "Okay, on the count of three, one...two...three!"

Stephanie threw open the door and she darted out of there and Chris figured at that pace she could win a sprint easily. Chris didn't have time to watch her though as he turned left and started running towards the gorilla. Nobody had time to stop him, he was just a blond blur running past them. He reached the gorilla and saw Paul up ahead, standing there, his arms folded and perhaps the scariest look he'd ever seen on the man's face. Chris could hear his music just as he was entering the area.

"Jericho," Paul growled and it was funny to Chris that he would say Jericho and not Irvine. Sometimes Paul got way too into character. Paul stepped forward menacingly, but Chris sidestepped him.

"Sorry, I've got a match," he said hastily as he brushed past the fuming Paul and out to the ring. He was so relieved to be away from everyone backstage and actually focus on something that was _supposed_ to happen tonight. Now he just had to think of his match. He walked down the ramp, focusing on his match, except Stephanie kept popping into his brain. He wondered if she was okay, if Paul had found her, if her father had found her. She was going to be a distraction, but he forced himself to push her out of his brain and focus on his match.

If he had his way, he would be able to think about her all the time very soon.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Wow, I am so amazed at the love for this story. It just continues to amaze the hell out of me. I really love writing this story though, it's so much fun and quirky and I just love it. I really liked this update and I really hope you do as well. So I hope you enjoy it and please, please review because seriously, the more you review, the more I want to write! :D

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Stephanie took a deep breath, or at least she tried to because breathing was difficult right now. She never knew she could run that fast. She probably hadn't run that fast since she was a little girl and was in PE class or something. She didn't think a person could run that fast in heels. She didn't even look to see where she was going. She'd turned when she felt the need and had zig-zagged her way around people. She was just a blur with brown hair flying behind her. But her feet were killing her and she had to catch her breath so she turned one corner and pressed herself against the wall, hoping to melt into it.

She'd wanted to at least watch Chris's match, but she had a feeling that was going to be near impossible. Since Chris was out there, Paul would probably think she'd go back to her office so she couldn't risk going back there. She also couldn't stand around and watch at the gorilla, that was like wearing a big open target on her back. She didn't think Paul would hurt her or anything, he wasn't that kind of man, but he would definitely make a spectacle and she would rather have this out in private. That way not everyone would know her business, except for the making out with Chris thing, which had been broadcast everywhere.

She looked around, trying to assess where she was in the arena exactly. There weren't a lot of people here so they must be in the unused part of the arena. There were a few people milling about the hallway she had just ducked out, but they were crew people and were walking purposefully to wherever they were headed so they didn't even notice her. She could hear the fans cheering for Rey, the sound reverberating through the arena so she at least knew their match was still going on. That was a good sign. It was also a good sign that Chris had actually made it out there and Paul hadn't gotten to him before he could. If he had, she had a feeling Chris would have been unable to compete tonight.

"Stephanie."

Stephanie screamed and jumped, her hand over her heart as she turned to her right. "Shane, don't _do_ that!"

Shane laughed at her, his eyes sparkling. "So what have you been doing this evening?"

"Shut up," she told him, looking down. Her breath was starting to even out and she only now realized her hair, which had been styled rather nicely earlier, was now in disarray. She pushed some of the strands out of her face and then looked up at her brother, who was looking amusedly at her. "What are you looking at?"

"Nothing," Shane said, folding his arms. "I just find it funny, is all."

"You find what funny? That I've completely ruined my life."

"You always were dramatic," Shane told her. "Though this situation is pretty dramatic. Only you would be making out with a guy that wasn't your husband and then have it broadcast on television. If it were someone else, you'd be laughing."

"But it's _me_," Stephanie said. "It's happening to me and I don't need to hear it from you. Just tell me this, has Dad seen it or heard about it?"

"I don't think so. You know how insular he is during big shows. He was holed up in his office before the show and when the show started, he walked straight to his station and sat down to converse with the announcers."

"But Paul can surely find him."

"You think Dad is going to let someone talk to him while he's working during a Pay-Per-View. If you're going to get to Dad, you're going to have to be there right when the show ends. Are you going to talk to him?"

"I'm going to have to, don't you think, explain the situation before Paul does. Paul is going to skew the situation."

"Skew the situation? How is he going to do that? You guys are married, he saw you making out with another guy. Which, by the way, what exactly is going on between you and Chris? I mean, I know what's going on _between_ you, I think everyone knows that now."

Stephanie shoved her brother in the shoulder, knocking him back a little as he continued to laugh. "Stop it, Shane."

"Okay, okay, geez, you'd think you would see the humor in the situation. I mean, of all the buttons to push, the one that broadcasts to the entire backstage area. Can you imagine if he'd pushed the button for the Titantron, that would've been even worse."

Stephanie groaned. "Why do you love to torture me?"

"Because I'm your brother and when you embarrass yourself, you better believe I'm going to be there and well, I'm going to go ahead and say that this is probably the most embarrassing thing you've done. Though, I'm going to say, it's hard to say that it wasn't a lot of the things you've done in the ring, the pie thing, the stinkface by Rikishi, or even when Austin had your shirt ripped off. But nah, this, I think, takes the cake."

"I'm glad my life gives you such enjoyment."

"It really is. So really, what's going on with you and Chris?"

"I don't know," she told him, not meeting her brother's eyes.

Now that she was away from Chris, she had a little time to think about what had happened. She knew Chris wanted more, he'd said as much to her earlier. Now she just had to explore her own feelings, even though they were already telling her what she wanted. Her body had been trying to tell her mind for a while now, but her mind was only just starting to catch up. There had to be a reason why touching Chris had such an affect on her. Still, they had separate lives. She was married to Paul, had been for some time now and Chris had been with his wife even longer. Then there were their kids, Chris had three and she had two and how would that even work? She was starting to have doubts creeping into her mind, even as her body fought hard to be something with Chris.

"I mean, from what I saw, you guys were pretty…into what you were doing," Shane said. He would've teased his sister some more, but she'd gotten a look on her face that he couldn't just ignore. Even as much as he loved to tease and prod at his sister, he knew there was a time to be serious as well.

"Yeah, I guess," she said, then sighed and ran her hand through her hair, "Shane, what the hell am I doing?"

"I'd say, for once, you're doing what _you_ want to be doing."

"What do you mean?" she asked. "I do what I want all the time."

"No you don't, think of how many decisions you've made in your life that have been influenced by someone else, however inadvertently. I mean, being in the business, that's not something you necessarily _chose_. It was there, it was available, it's what you've been bred to do. You went to the same college I did because I persuaded you to go there. And then there's Paul, Dad didn't like him at first so you guys broke up, right?"

"Yeah, but we wanted to be together, _we_ wanted to be together so we were together."

"Tell me this, when did you guys get back together."

Stephanie looked at her brother, her face sagging a little bit. "After my father said that he actually did like Paul and that he was wrong to ban us from dating each other. I went to Paul and told him and he said we should definitely get back together."

"Exactly," Shane said. "Now this thing with Chris, who's persuading you to do it?"

"Nobody, I guess, I just, I feel something for him, when I'm around him, I want to be around him," she said.

"Is Chris telling you to be with him or else?"

"No."

"See, it's something that you want, something that you have all on your own."

"But it's going to be hard."

"I think a great man said that nothing worth having will come easy," Shane said. "Besides, I like Chris better than I do Paul, just throwing that out there."

"We have kids, he has kids."

"Kids are pretty resilient if you ask me. Why do you think I'm not among the pissed off at you, like Paul is, like Shawn is because he's Paul's friend? Because I want to see you happy and believe me, I think that Chris will make you happier than Paul ever would."

"Now who's trying to persuade me?" she said.

"I don't have to go far, I saw the way you two were going at it, frankly, I don't think you need me to say anything at all, you two were looking pretty cozy, like this isn't the first time it's happened between you guys."

"You know me too well," she said, checking her watch. "How long was Chris's match supposed to go?"

Shane looked at the clipboard she only now noticed he was holding. "We've got Chris's match to go approximately sixteen minutes."

"Do you know how long it's been on?"

"Not really sure, hold on." He grabbed his walkie-talkie from the clip on his belt. "Hey, this is Shane, how much time left before the finish of this match?"

"We've got about four minutes left."

"I've got to get over there."

"Why?" Shane asked.

"I told Chris I would meet him," Stephanie said. "I can't go back on my word."

"Sounds like you've already made your decision, Steph," Shane pointed out. She wasn't sure she truly had, but she just couldn't deny that there was something between her and Chris. She owed it to herself to find out just what that was.

"Maybe," she confessed. "I've got to go, I'll talk to you later, Shane. Thanks for talking to me, but no thanks for being such a jerk about it."

"I'm not a jerk," he protested. "If I can't make fun of you, who is going to, huh? I mean, years from now, when you and Chris are happy and probably have a couple kids, I bet you're going to look back at this situation and laugh your ass off."

"I don't think so."

"Oh, I think so."

"I've got to go, bye," she said, taking a deep breath and starting to run again. She was back to dodging people and luckily she knew the lay of the land because otherwise, she would probably end up locked out of the arena and then Chris would think she had left him to fend for himself and she found herself not wanting him to think that she had abandoned him to face the consequences without her.

"Stephanie!" Stephanie looked behind her and saw that she'd been spotted by Paul.

"Damn it," Stephanie said. He was still a ways away from her so she hastily took off her heels to give her some leverage and started dashing down the hallway at full speed. She could hear Paul yelling after her, but she had no time to look back. Paul had a lot of muscle so he wasn't as agile as some of the other guys, but that didn't mean he could run. He certainly had m ore endurance than she did so if she got tired, she was done for. She started making turns wherever she could find another hallway, but she could still hear him yelling behind her.

"Get over here, I want to talk to you!" he yelled.

"I'm busy!" she yelled back lamely.

"No, you're not!"

"Yes, I am!" Stephanie yelled, then flew down another hallway and saw some tables with tablecloths over them. She nearly slid underneath one, but managed not to slip and fall and crawled underneath the table, pulling on the tablecloth so it wasn't fluttering and so it was covering her. She looked at her watch with the dim amount of light that was streaming in from the inch or so separating the tablecloth from the floor. She had exactly one minute and thirty-six seconds to meet Chris. She was so close, but she could hear Paul breathing so he was getting closer.

She held her breath as she heard him muttering. He sounded like he was still a few feet away and she huddled herself next to the wall, hoping that he wouldn't be able to see her from where he was standing. She dared not even breathe right now. Paul was talking to himself, wondering where she could be and she heard him open a couple of doors, say her name and then slam them shut again. He must've thought she had ducked into another room. That was fine, let him think that. As long as he didn't look under any tables, she would be fine.

She kept looking at her watch as time was ticking down. She could see Paul's shadow right next to the table and if she bent down a little, she could see his feet right in front of her. She pushed herself back against the wall again, hoping that he couldn't hear her breathe or move, praying that she didn't sneeze or cough. He stood there for a few moments and she was sure that he was going to bend over and rip the tablecloth off and have her cornered. She checked her watch again. She had less than a minute. She could hear the cheers from the crowd, they were louder than ever, she was so close, but Paul was not moving. No more apt was Paul's ring name than right now. He was the hunter and she felt like the innocent prey.

His shadow disappeared for a second before it came back and she thought she'd be home free, but she wasn't. He seemed to be standing there, contemplating his next move. Surely, if he knew she was under the table, he would have exposed her by now. She looked at her watch again, the match was either winding down or completely over and as she thought that, she could hear the roars from the crowd, which could only signify that Rey had won. She had to go meet Chris. She was supposed to meet him. They could get out of…then she remembered they'd put him in another match for the evening. She tried to think of where they could go and maybe they could go to her limo or would that be too obvious. Maybe they could go to his car…there had to be somewhere they could go. But first, she had to meet him and she was currently stuck under a table.

Chris stayed in the ring a few moments, pretending to be pissed after his loss. He was more worried about what had been going on backstage. He'd still managed to deliver a great match, despite his distractions and Rey ribbing him about what had happened earlier. It was still too early to be laughing about this. Maybe later, when everything was sorted out and all parties had calmed down. Now that he was here, lying in the ring, he thought about Jessica, about his kids. He'd ignored them all in the heat of Stephanie, but now that he had a few moments to think, he could already see himself parsing out custody. He wanted Stephanie, that was it.

He finally picked himself up and started walking slowly towards the back, acting dejected after his loss. He didn't go up the ramp, like Stephanie had directed. Instead, he hung a right and made his way towards the curtain. He just hoped Paul wasn't back there, waiting for him. More than that, though, he hoped Stephanie wasn't back there _with _Paul, waiting for him. Maybe she had gone to Paul, told him that he had forced himself on her, had kissed her against her will and was placing the blame solely on her. He feared that. What would happen then? His heart would drop, he knew that much. He grabbed the curtain and pulled, but it was worse than that…there was nobody there. He stepped through, looking around for Stephanie, but she wasn't there. He almost didn't know how to feel. His stomach felt empty and he nodded his head a little. So this was how it was.

So this was what she wanted.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Thanks you guys for the reviews, you all rock! I love the responses for this story, it's pretty crazy, but I love them. I hope that this chapter is just as good as the rest and that you enjoy it like the rest of them, leave a review if you want, thanks and enjoy. :)

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He looked down. He should've known she wouldn't show up. It was obvious he wanted something more and she didn't. Now that he was away from her, now that he had a clear head (as clear as it could be after a match) he could see how much more reluctant she had been than him. He'd probably forced her into thinking that they could be more and the heat of the moment had gone to her head and she'd agreed. Once they were apart though, she must have come to her senses and he supposed he should come to his.

He had a family waiting for him at home, maybe, who knew what Paul would do. He would probably call up his wife and tell her he'd been making out with another woman and Jessica would throw him out. Never-mind the fact that he suspected Jessica hadn't been entirely faithful to him. He had no proof of it so she would throw him out of his own house and then he'd truly be alone, but he honestly didn't think he would feel as alone as he felt right now. It was strange. He knew he was surrounded by thousands upon thousands of people, but he felt alone.

He laughed to him because what else could he really do? How else could he really react? The situation had been ridiculous to begin with. Kissing Stephanie? What had he been thinking? Surely she wouldn't have given it all up for _him_. He was ridiculous in thinking that and it was only apt that he was here alone. She'd come to her senses and she was right to do so, so he laughed. He laughed at how stupid he'd been, how his life would never be the same again. He laughed to fill the empty space with something, anything that could potentially make him feel something other than the rejection that was settling on his stomach like a film of grime.

"Idiot," he muttered to himself.

It was relatively quiet here and he was glad it was because he still didn't want to get caught out by Paul. Just because Stephanie was rejecting him didn't mean that Paul would just stop looking for him and declare the matter settled in any way. No, Paul would still want to exact whatever kind of revenge he was planning on him. If he took back Stephanie and she convinced him it was all Chris's fault, he'd be in even deeper trouble. Paul would have it out for him for ages for embarrassing him like he had. He was probably going to job to Paul for the rest of his life now.

He leaned against the wall, trying to disappear into the darkness. Not very many people came by this way because there was no access to the backstage locker room area and part of this area could be seen by the fans so nobody came over here for the most part. So it was easy for him to just fade into the dark curtains around him. He should just stay here until his next match, not that he knew when it was, but he figured that he could find out whenever he heard Legacy's music or whoever else was in that match. Then he'd go out there, win the belts, and leave. He wondered, almost instinctively, where Stephanie was at the moment.

She couldn't believe Paul was _sitting_ on the table she was under. Of all the tables in this place, he had to sit on the show she was under. She knew he was sitting on it because she'd heard the table creak under his weight. It would be just her luck tonight to have the table collapse under his weight and on top of her and then have him just crash onto her and crush. It would be a fitting end for her disastrous and embarrassing evening. It had been five minutes since Chris's match had ended and surely he was backstage by now, probably seeing she wasn't there and thinking the worst. And it wasn't the worst that she was thinking. She wanted to go with him, but she was stuck under here, with Paul dangling his legs over the table's end and sometimes invading her space. As if it weren't bad enough she was stuck under here, she had Paul's legs kicking near her as well.

Then she came up with an idea. Oh, it was brilliant and how had she not thought of it earlier when she could have gone out there to help Chris? She grabbed her phone out of her pocket, thanking herself for putting it on mute sometime in her haste this evening. She turned it on slowly, sliding her finger along the front to unlock it. She went to her messaging application and pulled up Paul's number, then started typing very slowly. She knew her phone was on silent, but the fear was coursing through her now and she felt as if Hunter could hear her breathing and was just sitting there, waiting until she ran out of oxygen or something. Her knees were starting to ache from being under here for so long so she hoped this worked.

She sent the message and heard Paul's phone ding a moment later. She sighed silently in relief that he actually had his phone. Otherwise, she would probably have to stay here until Paul _had_ to leave for his match. She could hear Paul shuffling for his phone and any moment now he would read her message:

Paul, I'm really sorry I ran away earlier, I would really like to talk to you about what happened, please meet me in my office.

She waited, holding her breath as she heard Paul grunt and then mutter something to himself. She heard him flip down his phone and waited, which was killing her. This entire waiting thing was definitely killing her at the moment. Just go, Paul, just go! She waited a few more moments before Paul got off the table and stood up. He stood there for a moment and then finally, mercifully, she saw his shoes disappear and then she could hear his footsteps start to walk down the hallway towards the direction she knew her office was in. He fell for it; he actually fell for it. She grinned to herself as she peeked under the side of the table to see his form disappearing around the corner.

She had to wait a few more moments though, to make sure he was really going towards her office and that he didn't know she was under the table and was just waiting around the corner for her and as soon as she stepped out he would be chasing her again. She grabbed her shoes and then peeked out again and there was no sign of him and nobody else coming down the hallway. She went to the other side of the table, the one closer to where she knew Chris was, or at least where she hoped he still was. Maybe when he saw she wasn't there he'd gotten angry and left…or worse, sought her out and went to her office. If Paul met with Chris, she wasn't sure either man would make it to their match.

She took a deep breath and darted out from underneath the table, like a rat trying to make it to a piece of food. She ran in her bare feet, turning corners as fast as she could and then checking to make sure Paul wasn't around them, waiting for her like a crazed madman stalking his prey. She finally managed to get close to where she needed to be, but there were more people here so she had to be extra careful not to run into someone who would blow the whistle on where she was. The person she feared seeing most, other than Paul, was Shawn. Shawn would probably run screaming after Paul to find him so he could berate her and make a public scene of this private matter that had seen much too much public thus far.

When the coast seemed clear, she darted across the busy area, trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible and then into the darker area where she'd told Chris to wait. She looked around, but it was almost too dark to see anything. Damn it, he wasn't here. Where could he have gone? She couldn't risk going out again. Surely, by now, Paul had figured out she wasn't in her office and had tricked him and he'd be on the prowl again.

"Stephanie?"

Stephanie turned sharply at the sound of the voice, and upon further analysis, was happy to know it was Chris's. "Hey," she said, out of breath now for the third time this evening. "Where were you?"

"I had to film that scene with Teddy."

"You came back," she said, smiling slightly.

"I thought…well, that maybe you would get here while I was gone, I thought I would just check."

"Smart," she said, walking closer to him, then stopping.

"I didn't think…I thought you'd left," he said, stepping forward and she could just make him out through the sliver of light that signaled a break in the curtains.

"God, you'd think I'd go through all that trouble if I was just going to leave," she said, leaning up to kiss him for a myriad of reasons. She could see that he had worried that she'd abandoned him, not wanted what she wanted. It was all over his face or what she could see of it at the moment. It was also to reassure herself that she was doing the right thing, that she was turning her life upside down for the right reasons. As she kissed him, she had all the reason she needed. He kissed her back after a moment, pressing his lips against hers before pulling away.

"I was worried, I mean, I thought you'd gone back to him," Chris said, baring his soul now, now that she was here and with him.

"You would not believe where I've been," she said, glancing around like Paul would jump out at her.

"Where have you been?" he asked, wondering what had caused her delay.

She shook her head. "Not here, we've got to go, we've only got so much time as it is."

"But I have a match later, remember? Actually a match very soon."

"I know, but we can't stay here. Once Paul finds out I'm not in my office, he's going to come looking for us again and I can't take the chance that he'll find us here."

"It's pretty secluded, you're the only person that's come back this way since I've gotten here."

"That may be, but Paul is wily, he'll think of all the places he hasn't looked and one of those is here."

"But my next match is after this match going on right now," he said as he could hear the crowd cheering mildly for the Dolph vs. Khali match. He and Adam were going to have to bring the crowd back up during his match.

Stephanie sighed and rubbed her temples, "God, how long was I under that table?"

"You were under a table?" he asked, his brow knitting as he tried to picture Stephanie under a table. He couldn't quite make his brain see that image.

"Yes," she said, laughing slightly as she couldn't believe the lengths she'd gone to either. "Paul was chasing after me and I had to think quick so I ducked under a table, a table he then decided to sit on top of and trap me underneath."

Chris couldn't help it, he breathed a sigh of relief. She'd just been held up, she wasn't rejecting him. She'd just been…stuck under a table. "How did you get out?"

"I texted him that I was in my office, willing to talk and when he finally left, I ran here to meet you, hoping I wasn't too late. Am I too late?" she asked, looking up at him earnestly and even in the darkness he could see the blue of her eyes.

He shook his head, "Do you think I would've gone through everything _I've_ been through just to cop out on you."

"I was the one trapped under a table," she told him.

"Rey kept trying to distract me my entire match, making kissy noises at me like he wanted to stop the match and start making out with me. I was both horrified and not amused," Chris said, gathering her up in his arms. "I know what could make me feel better though."

"You sure do move quickly, don't you, Irvine?" Stephanie said. "So after this match you have coming up, _then_ we've got to get out of here, but we've also got to talk to my dad because we _have_ to get to him first."

"So wouldn't leaving be counterproductive if we want to speak with him first, maybe we should hide under his table so when the show is over we can just peek out and talk to him," he teased and she rolled her eyes.

"You are not getting the seriousness of the situation."

"Oh, I'm serious," he said, kissing her neck.

"You're impossible," Stephanie said. "Look, we can't just stay in this one place, I'm telling you, Paul will find us and he is not going to be happy and I would like to make it through this night in one piece."

"You're a spoilsport," he said, really just relieved that she was here with him. He could work out the logistics later, the important thing was that she was here with him now. "Let's just stay here until my match and then we'll hang out until the show is over."

"Oh yeah, where, where are we going to hang out?"

"I'm sure there's a Port-o-Potty around here somewhere, he'd never suspect that. Or we could disguise ourselves as fans and go out and watch the rest of the show," he said, trying to make light of the situation and ease her tension.

"Paul, I think I hear voices, maybe they're over here."

"Shit!" Stephanie hissed. "I knew he'd get Shawn to tail us. We've got to get out of here. Oh God, oh God, oh God, we're going to get caught and Paul and Shawn are going to beat you up and you've got a match and you're winning the belt--"

"Come on, this way," Chris said, grabbing her hand. They were just going to have to risk being seen by a few of the fans, that was all. But it would have to do for now. He started to run towards the side where they could make their escape.

"Oww!" Stephanie said, grabbing her leg. "No, no, no, Chris, cramp, I've got a cramp from all this damn running I've been doing."

"Are you kidding me?" Chris said, turning towards her. He lifted her up and threw her over his shoulder and she had to cover her mouth to stop from squealing in surprise as Chris held her by the thighs and started running out the side, pushing past the curtains and trying not to get caught up in them. Then he started running out the side, knowing that some fans could probably see him with Stephanie over his shoulder as he ran.

"I am very close to your ass right now, can you shift me please?" Stephanie asked, feeling just a tad uncomfortable at the moment. Chris was wearing almost nothing and it was just a little awkward.

"Yeah, well I'm close to _your_ ass right now so shut up," Chris said as he tried to figure out where to go. He just started running down corridors and pushing doors open and generally not knowing where he was going as Stephanie kept trying to adjust herself. "Would you quit it? I can't concentrate."

"I'm sorry, but I feel like I'm going to fall on my head!" she told him as he pushed open a door and Stephanie felt a breeze. "Chris, are we outside?"

Chris set her down then slowly said, "Yes."

She gained her bearings and adjusted her clothes as she looked around. They were at the side of the arena, not the back where the wrestlers entered and exited. "You locked us out, didn't you?" Chris looked at her sheepishly.

"Yes."


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: I am so glad that people are loving this story, I love writing it a lot and I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint. So enjoy and reviews are always welcome and loved, thanks. :)

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Stephanie rubbed her temples. So not only was she caught making out with a man who was her…something as yet to be determined, her husband looking for her, out for revenge, her brother was teasing her mercilessly, the entire company knew she was a cheater, she'd been stuck under a table, she'd gotten a leg cramp that was still throbbing, and now, to top off her already disastrous night, she was stuck outside the arena, locked out. She looked next to her where Chris was just laughing and she stared at him like he'd suddenly been struck by the dummy stick.

"What are you laughing at?" she asked.

"This situation," he said. He nudged Stephanie's shoulder. "Come on, Steph, have a sense of humor, we run around the arena like chickens with our heads cut off, wait, actually, that was just me, you were just being carried like a sack of potatoes."

"I've never heard of a chicken carrying a sack of potatoes," Stephanie told him, raising an eyebrow and folding her arms, ready to go toe-to-toe with him.

"Touché," Chris nodded appreciatively. "But come on, of all the things that have happened to us tonight, I think this is the one thing where we can just take a step back and laugh. We're stuck outside the arena, probably halfway around it and it's just funny. Laugh, Stephanie."

"How can you laugh at a time like this?" she asked. "You have a match in probably five minutes or so and we're stuck over here and even if we do make it, Paul could be in between our path."

He couldn't help it, he loved that she'd said _our_ path and not just his path. There was still just a touch of fear that she would abandon him on their little adventure so it was those little reassurances that kept him grounded. "Isn't there a segment between the Dolph/Khali match and my match?"

"I think so, that'll buy us a little time, but we can't stand around here waiting for the off-chance that someone will come out this door and let us in, we've got to go around to the back and get back inside," she said. "Luckily we both are recognizable because I don't have my ID on me."

"I think they'll let us in," he told her as they started walking. They didn't say much for a few minutes as they both tried to navigate how far away from the entrance they were. To their right was the parking lot so they'd probably ended up nearly all the way around the arena. Stephanie wondered just how far Chris had run. It was hard to tell when all she could see was his feet.

"We should walk a little faster," Stephanie said as picked up speed a little. "I don't want you to be late for your match, that's the _last_ thing I need tonight."

"It's kind of cold out here," he commented, looking around.

"I'm comfortable," she said, "but then again, I'm not in briefs right now. Why the switch?" She'd been wondering about that for a while now.

"I thought it would be time for a change," Chris said. "I've been wearing the pants for most of my career and with me coming back and the whole new persona, I thought that this would be a positive change for me, you know."

"Shocking change is more like it," she told him.

"You don't like it?" he asked, ready to make the switch at a moment's notice if she said so. She'd gotten completely under his skin and he'd be willing to do just about anything for her right now, he thought. That was a sudden thought and he wondered how long he'd actually felt like this, but pushed down the feelings. This couldn't be completely sudden. Maybe it had been gradual, like the Grand Canyon type of gradual. Like over the past ten years he'd known Stephanie every time he saw her a little bit more of himself eroded and blended into her until tonight had happened. The glory finally revealed.

"No, I'm not saying that, I'm just saying it's a change," she told him. "I don't mind seeing you in those."

He laughed and dared to reach out his hand, taking it in hers. It was just a simple gesture on the outside, but there's just something very intimate about holding hands, whether it's with a friend or a lover, husband or child, there's just something to holding hands and as he intertwined their fingers together, rubbing his thumb gently over her knuckles, he hoped she could feel it too, hoped that she thought the act as intimate and special as he did.

"Good because I'm not changing them," he said, trying to regain control, but he would've changed them right this second (well not _right_ this second as he didn't have any other pants on him) if she asked him.

"So what happens now?" she asked. They were alone right now and it just felt like the right venue in which to bring up this question, the one that had been asked, partially answered, but never fully articulated this entire evening. "I mean, not right now, right now," she said, looking down at her feet, but then bringing her head up to look at Chris in the lights streaming down from the streetlights near them and the lights attached to the arena.

"I don't really know what happens now," he told her. "I just know that whatever this is between us has been coming for a long time and I, for one, am really tired of dancing around it. I don't want to dance around it actually. I'm a fan of facing things head on, well, not Paul, not yet anyways, not until after my match is over, then I might be ready for a confrontation, but I just…I want this, whatever this is with you."

"Do you love me?" she asked, wondering. She wasn't sure she was in love with Chris, was pretty positive she wasn't, but the potential was certainly there and had been there for God knew how long, years maybe, probably definitely years.

"No," he said, but quickly amended that with, "but I definitely think I could. I really like you, I know that much, but I'm not going to say that I was loving you from afar or anything because frankly I wasn't, why, do you love me?"

"No, but like you, I think it's a definite possibility."

"Except we're both kind of married," he brought up. It wasn't so much an elephant in the room, but it was something they both knew was the case.

"With kids," she added.

"With kids," he echoed.

"You have three."

"You have two," he told her, laughing again, but this one was short of comedy and filled more with melancholy. "Do you think we're insane?"

"No, I think we're trying to make ourselves happy. Chris, we both know that whatever this is between us has been brewing. Tonight was just a way to show us that we can't keep doing what we've been doing the way we've been doing it."

"I agree, it's no way to live."

"So we have to figure out what we want out of this…relationship, am I right in calling what we have now a relationship?"

"I think so. I want to know what it is with us, I really do."

"Me too," she said. "Paul's probably going to leave me anyways."

"Do you honestly think he would after all the power that being married to you gives him?" Chris said. "I bet he'd take you back in a second once he realizes that you have the power and if he's not married to you than he doesn't have it."

"You think too lowly of him," she told him.

"You think too highly of him," Chris told her.

"It doesn't matter anyways, I'm leaving him," Stephanie said and Chris looked at her, grinning, his teeth shining in the glow of the streetlights. It was perhaps the nicest smile she'd ever seen him wear.

"And I'm going to leave Jessica."

"Well aren't we making big decisions left and right," Stephanie laughed as they finally arrived at the back of the arena and not a moment too soon. Stephanie was sure that Chris's match was coming up very soon and if he didn't show up, it would throw the entire show off-kilter. They just needed to get to the back.

"Oh my God, you're Chris Jericho!"

Chris groaned and looked around to a girl emerging from the dark like some sort of demon. She was wearing a Chris Jericho shirt and had Chris Jericho wristbands and generally looked like she was wearing Chris's entire merchandise collection. Chris dropped Stephanie's hand quickly and tried to appear friendly, but he didn't have time for this.

"I am your biggest fan! I'm like, crazy about you," she said, coming up to him. "I came back here in the off-chance that I would meet you and here you are! Oh my God, you are my complete hero, I love you so much and I am just your biggest fan, I swear, you can ask me anything about anything and I can tell you all about it. I was such a huge fan of all your storylines, every single one, do you think you're going to have another romantic storyline because I think that you would work well with a lot of divas."

"Um, I don't know, probably not."

"That's too bad because you were so hot when you were with Trish, I loved you guys together."

Well now Stephanie was feeling uncomfortable, kicking at a couple rocks as she was completely ignored. Her phone buzzed and she grabbed it, looking at the new message she'd just received, _Stephanie, I know you're probably with Chris, he's expected out there in 4 minutes, where are you?_ Stephanie looked at her watch, mentally counting how long it would take for them to get in there and she sent a text back to her brother _Shane, I'm going to need a huge favor, Chris and I are outside the arena, can you distract Paul until I get Chris out to the ring_. She looked back to Chris, who was still listening to this girl go on and on about him, now she was talking about how she'd managed to get a hold of a lot of his early matches and seemed to be analyzing them and the rise of his career.

_You're outside the arena?_

_I'll explain later, can you help?_

_Yeah, I'm on it_.

"So what's your favorite hobby? Because whatever it is, I just want to know," she said, "I'm Penny by the way, like the coin, I think my dad found a lucky penny the day I was born so he decided that Penny would be a great name for me, isn't that hilarious?"

"Very much so," Chris nodded. He couldn't believe after all he'd faced in one evening that the one obstacle he was having trouble getting around was a rabid fan.

"Chris, we have to go, you have about 3 minutes to get to the gorilla."

"Sorry, Penny," Chris told her, "I have to go."

"Oh no, we were having such a nice conversation," she said, like she and Chris were friends or something. Chris was also starting to shiver a little because honestly, even when it's warm outside, being in something akin to a Speedo is not going to keep you warm, unless you're in the tropics.

"Do you want an autograph or something?"

"Would I! Yes!" she exclaimed, producing a picture of him and a pen out of seeming thin air. Chris was a little frightened at this point, but signed the picture for her, even putting a very nice note to her even as time was ticking down on him. "I don't care what anyone says, Chris, you're the best."

"Thanks, you know, I always appreciate my fans."

"I know you do," she said, trying to keep him there.

"Chris, we have to go."

"I understand, bye, Penny."

"Goodbye, Chris," she said dreamily, sighing as she watched him walk away.

Stephanie grabbed Chris's hand again. "Do you realize that girl just completely ignored me even though I was standing there the entire time?"

"Jealous that your…boy-type friend person got more attention than you did?"

"It's just rude, I wouldn't ignore someone."

"You're jealous, wow, I love it," he said, kissing her temple. "Okay, so how am I going to get to the ring, have we figured that out yet? How much time do I have, do I have to sprint there? Normally I like meeting the fans, but when I've got a match in a few minutes, not so much."

"You've got a minute and a half," she told him as they reached the back door. "And you are free to just go to the ring. I've got things covered. While you were being bombarded and I was being ignored, I talked to Shane and he's got everything covered."

Shane had herded Paul and Shawn into a room and was talking with them, checking his watch every now and then. "I completely understand, Paul, I don't know how my stupid sister could do that to you."

"She's a bitch, no offense to your family, but she's a bitch for doing that and embarrassing me like that. Like that asshole, Irvine, has anything over me."

"Don't worry, he'll be jobbed out to anyone you want soon enough," Shane said, checking his watch again. Chris should be out there any minute and he could stop trying to keep up this pretense of actually liking Paul. Shane hated the guy, had since his sister had started dating him. It was obvious to Shane that, though he knew part of Paul did maybe love Stephanie, Paul had other motives for marrying Stephanie. His head had gotten too big and Shane could not wait until Paul got his comeuppance.

"Good, I don't want him touching a title ever," Paul said and Shawn nodded besides him.

"You got it," Shane said, just as he heard Teddy Long's music hitting. Chris had to be there by now. He just had to be.

"He's going to regret this."

"I've got to go," Shane said, "but it's been nice talking to you, Paul."

"Thanks for listening, Shane," Paul said smugly.

"Oh, don't worry about it, Paul, don't worry about it at all."


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews. I'm still really happy that you like this story. I'm not entirely pleased with this chapter, I'm not entirely sure why, but I hope that's just in my head and that you all enjoy it and reviews are always lovely if you feel so inclined to leave one. :)

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"Good luck."

Stephanie looked around. They'd found their dark corner again and he was about to leave for his match. Quickly, and almost embarrassedly, she leaned up to kiss his cheek. He wasn't necessarily surprised by the gesture, but instead, was thinking about how he could get used to those. It would be different now, with his…whatever Stephanie was going to be, being around all the time. Would he be able to deal with that? Jessica had never traveled with him, not with her job and then with their kids. If he was with Stephanie, she'd be around _all_ the time, would he get sick of her? He looked down at her, the way the light peeking in from behind this dark curtain caught the side of her face. No, he didn't think he would and wasn't that a true sign of liking someone, maybe?

"Thanks," he told her, kissing her forehead, returning her chaste kiss with one of his own. "Everything is going to change after this match, isn't it?"

She looked off for a moment, her face turning into the light. It caught her eyes, sparkling for just a second before she turned to him and nodded. "Yeah, it's going to change."

"Are you ready for that?" he asked, one more time, just to make sure, just to make sure that she wanted this. And if she said no, then he'd just make sure that _he_ wanted this. "Because there's no going back. I don't think I could go tell my wife I'm leaving her and then you decide you don't want this and I have to renege this."

"You'd renege that?" she asked, her brow furrowing.

"Jericho, you're needed!" someone yelled from behind the curtain. Chris sighed and turned towards the voice and then looked back at Stephanie.

"I've got to go, Steph."

"You'd go back to her if I didn't want you?" she asked as he started talking backwards steps. If he went back to his wife, if he would go back just like that, then what was she really to him? Someone that he could give or take at a moment's notice.

He thought, briefly, then smiled at her. "No, I don't think I could now. I'd do everything I could to make you want me and not…someone else."

She grinned at him as he slipped through the curtain. He turned around and could see some people staring at him. Some of them were whispering feverishly to each other and others were snickering. He knew that the talk of the evening was on him and Stephanie and what everyone had no doubt seen and if they hadn't seen it, surely they'd heard about it. He could just picture the news traveling backstage in hushed whispers and he almost wanted to laugh. The news would blow over…eventually, at some point, maybe, hopefully…someday…

Chris's music hit and he walked out there. It was only at that moment he realized he hadn't even met with Adam for this match. He had no clue what he was actually walking into and so he just walked out there and tried to appear like he knew what he was doing. Just put on the cocky, arrogant face, that was usually his solution to everything. He was a heel, the fans hated him, just put on the face and let the boos start raining down on him. He looked around, trying to appear nonchalant. He'd had a match earlier so he was warmed up, not stiff, still loose. He might actually attribute that to what was going to happen after the match.

He knew, because he wasn't an idiot, that it was going to be a struggle. To be with Stephanie, there were going to be obstacles, setbacks, but at the end, it would all culminate to happiness, or so he hoped. They'd have to divorce their spouses, something he wasn't looking forward to and he couldn't imagine how she would be looking forward to that either. Although, to him, he would be chomping at the bit to divorce Paul, but there were also children involved, for both sides. His daughters weren't even three years old yet and he'd be uprooting their lives. Stephanie's youngest wasn't even a year old yet. Those doubts were creeping back into his mind.

He could feel eyes on him and he looked over at Adam, who was smirking at him. He glared at him a little and he could tell that Adam wanted to start laughing at him. That's just what he needed right now, his friend to start cracking up on their way to the ring when they were supposed to be serious or at least, he thought they were going to be serious. Next thing he knew, Edge was slapping him on the shoulder as they sauntered to the ring, leaning in close to him. Chris tried to pull away, but Edge was having none of that.

"Everyone's been looking for you all evening, were you making out with Steph somewhere?" Edge whispered, pretending like he was talking strategy.

"Shut up," Chris hissed. He looked to the ring and the two teams they were facing were also talking to each other, but they were staring straight at him, letting him know they were talking about him too.

"I'm just saying, dude, you have stepped in this one," Edge said. "What are you going to do?"

"None of your business," he said as they climbed in the ring.

He was thankful for the match. It distracted him from everything that was going on backstage. He wasn't pretending that any of these men were Paul, he wasn't looking to take out his anger or resentment, he just let that all go and wrestled. It was easy enough to fall into this. It was something he'd done for so long and tonight it would spell his respite. He'd get a moment where his thoughts weren't on the future. The future was so uncertain right now. He wanted to break up with a wife that loved him and see if there was anything with a woman who didn't. That alone was enough to rile up any man's mind. So yes, wrestling was his moment of clarity in the oceans of confusion.

Stephanie didn't have the same luxury that Chris did. She was still standing there in the dark, the only indication she had of anything pertaining to the match was the reactions from the crowd. She didn't want to move for fear that Paul was around and she'd walk right into his chest and then she'd have to explain. She creeped closer to the crack in the curtain and pulled it back slightly. There weren't a lot of people around, just a few watching a match on a monitor. Paul wasn't in her line of sight, which was promising. Her father was sitting in his usual spot, relaying information to the referees and to the announcers.

"Boo!"

Stephanie squealed and turned around, "Shane, _stop_ doing that!"

"I can't resist," Shane told her, laughing as she drew the curtains closed and hoped nobody heard her. "I'm sorry, this situation is just too good to pass up. I've wanted to talk to you though, haven't you noticed my calls?"

"Sorry, I've been distracted with Chris's match."

"I see," Shane nodded. "So have you guys talked about what you guys are right now?"

"I'm leaving Paul and he's leaving Jessica and we're going to try this whole crazy dating thing out," she told him and he could tell that she was really excited about this new future and he was glad for it. It was about time she got Paul out of this family. He couldn't wait to see Paul's face when this happened.

"That's awesome," Shane laughed. "This is going to be so great. I am so proud of you, Steph. I am so damn proud of you."

"You're _proud_ of me?" she asked. She felt like she was tearing down a lot of walls tonight.

"Yes, because you're going after what you want and you are getting rid of that dead weight you've been carrying around for the last eight years. You are going to feel so much lighter when you get rid of him. Gone will be the days when he asked for the title and whined when he didn't get it. That alone would make me happy to be rid of."

"He's not as bad as you think or as Chris thinks. I don't know why the both of you seem to think he's such a bad guy when he's not."

"Because, Stephanie," Shane said, placing his hands on her shoulders and leaning down a little so they were eye to eye, "The Paul we know is nothing like the Paul that you know."

"The Paul I know isn't that bad, I mean, he has his bad moments, but don't we all." She didn't know why she felt compelled to defend this guy, but she was going to break his heart in mere hours so she felt like she should send him off into the world with something positive.

"The Paul you know is the fake Paul."

"I refuse to believe that, like you said, I was with him for almost eight years."

"Yeah, but you didn't see him when he was backstage and away from you. You don't know how many times guys have come to me to complain that he has been whining and threatening to hold them down because of you."

"No," Stephanie shook her head, "I don't believe that."

"Stephanie, think about the guy tonight, hunting you down like a wounded deer. Do you think that's _all _because he loves you?"

"Stop it, Shane," Stephanie said. "Look, it's a moot point, I want to be with Chris. Chris wants to be with me and we're going to figure out a way to be together. Now what was it you needed?"

"I just wanted to let you know that Hunter and Shawn are currently locked in a room together," Shane said proudly.

"Locked in a room?"

"Yes, I locked them in when I took them in there to get them away from you. I figure they'll be in there for a while, so you don't have to hide over here right now and you don't have to worry about them getting to Dad first. You can talk to him all you want. I'm keeping them in there until Paul's match later, I figure that'll give you enough time to get Dad away from the desk and I can take over for him."

"There's no way I can get Dad away from that desk during a Pay-Per-View. It's hard enough getting him away during a regular show, but during a Pay-Per-View, there's just going to be no way."

"I've taken care of it."

"What do you mean you've taken care of it?" Stephanie asked.

"Oh, I'm just going to have one of dad's lawyers say that a paternity suit _was_ actually filed against him. I think _that_ will be enough to get him off his ass and into his office, don't you think? Then I'll be conveniently right there when he needs me."

"But there's nobody who is suing Dad over paternity."

"I figure Dad has been around the block enough to think there is. Then I'll have the lawyer call and say that it wasn't his name on the record and it was an erroneous call they received about it. He'll be so relieved, but he'll know that he needs to take a moment to collect his thoughts because it scared the shit out of him. This should give you enough time to come in and talk to him about what's going on before he really gets wind of it."

"I never knew you were so…manipulative."

"I _am_ a McMahon, just because I choose not to act like Dad doesn't change that fact."

"Why are you doing this for me, Shane?"

"I thought I already told you."

"But going through all this trouble for me, I don't get it. You have a better plan that I've had all night, what with me running into bathrooms, getting stuck under tables, getting locked out of the arena. How are you more put together than I am right now? I should have a plan of attack, I should be the one who has this all coordinated, but I don't. I feel like I'm lost or something, caught in the woods."

"Well, you were caught making out with a guy by…everyone in the company," he chuckled. "I just want to help you out because I want you to be happy."

"This is above and beyond."

"Consider it a second wedding gift," he winked.

She groaned, "Shane?"

"I'm just calling it like I see it, Steph."


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews, I love them all. Sorry for the lack of updates, too many stories, too little time for the last couple months, but I hope things will get better now. Anyways, hope you enjoy the chapter and if you like my stories and StephanieIrvine's (Jodi) stories, you should check out our one-shot. Enjoy and reviews are loved and appreciated. :)

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The plan was for neither Chris nor Edge to be tagged into the match for a while. The other wrestlers were supposed to be mad that they were added to the match so they would ignore them until Chris and Edge forced their way into the match and subsequently won because in a match with these competitors. There was no way Chris and Edge wouldn't win unless there was serious interference. Unfortunately for Chris, because they were just standing around, it gave Edge ample time to question him about what was going on.

"Dude, you were _so_ making with her," Edge said, leaning his head towards Chris. It made them look like they were strategizing.

"Shut up," Chris hissed at him, trying to act like he was paying attention to the match and was trying to figure out when to interrupt.

"I can't believe you were making out with her, are you sleeping with her?" Edge asked.

"I'm not sleeping with her," Chris said through gritted teeth. Who the hell had thought that him and Edge watching most of the match would be a good idea? He would have to kill whoever that person was, unless it was Stephanie, he wouldn't kill her, but he would ask what the hell she was thinking.

"Will you be sleeping with her?"

"That's none of your business," Chris told him.

"Well, I think it's everyone's business now that you two were making out and everyone saw. It was pretty hilarious. I didn't see Paul's reaction, but I heard it was epic."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Have you talked to him? I heard that you were on the run or something," Edge told him, not letting up on Chris. He was trying to focus on the action. The match was being given about ten minutes, but it was scheduled so that he and Edge were barely in a minute of it and would have nothing to do for at least the first seven. Seven minutes was a very long time when you didn't want to talk to someone. It was a very long time indeed as Chris was finding out. Usually his matches would end so quickly, the anticipation being far worse than the actual match. The match itself would fly by and then he'd be backstage and someone would be congratulating him.

This match, however, was dragging. It felt like he'd been standing there for hours instead of minutes, but then his mind was elsewhere. It was backstage with Stephanie. He wondered what she was doing, if she was able to hide from Paul or if he had found her. What was she thinking? He didn't know her well enough to read her thoughts, hell, he probably never would be able to read her thoughts, but he hoped that she was thinking of him at least. He was still scared that Stephanie would change her mind. The adrenaline of the evening was going to catch up to them at some point. When they crashed, where would that really, truly leave them?

He knew he was worrying too much, but there was so much to think about after this match, after this night ended. He'd have to start divorce proceedings, hell, before even doing that, he'd have to call his wife and tell her what was going on. She'd take it badly, like any person probably would when their spouse was about to tell them they had a divorce. _Then_ he would have to start divorce proceedings and there would almost assuredly be a custody battle. The same would happen with Stephanie and Paul and with Paul, he'd make it difficult, Chris was positive of this.

"I'm not on the run," Chris said, though he was. He'd seen more of this arena than he'd ever care to and he'd had to hide in some pretty odd places.

"Are you sure, man, because nobody has seen you and nobody has seen Stephanie? Did she leave?"

"She hasn't left," Chris said, wishing he had a watch so he could see how much time had passed. He feared that he'd looked and it'd only be about two minutes or something. He was living a nightmare right now.

"Oh, so you know where she is then," Edge said smugly.

"Shut up," Chris just wanted him to be quiet. He just needed to be quiet. "We have a match we should be focusing on."

"Dude, I'm focusing on it and we're not doing anything right now," Edge said. "And this is the biggest news since…well, since me and Amy, I guess. Actually, yeah, this is probably just as big as that. Hope Paul doesn't slash your tires."

"I'm not going to let this become a storyline."

"Do you really think that Paul would let this become a storyline? Hell, do you think that he's not going to absolutely flip his lid and like kill you? I hope that someone is making up your will now. And you know how much Vince loves the guy, you might be without a job by the time this night is over."

"I don't care," Chris said. He thought he was getting the better part of the deal out of this anyways. He could stand to go without a job. He had a lot of interests in other things and things would happen for him. If he got Stephanie out of this then he could do anything he wanted. Not that he honestly thought that he would lose his job. Stephanie was part of management and had a stake in the company. She wouldn't fire him and he wouldn't lose his job.

"Man, this is just so awesome. All over the TV."

"Dude, just do your job," Chris said, shoving him so he would go interfere like he was supposed to in this spot. The referee had signaled to them that it was time for their involvement in the match.

Edge went to tag himself in and get in the match, only to be thwarted a moment later and went back to where he was, acting frustrated. "Are you going to start dating Stephanie?" Edge asked as soon as he was next to Chris again.

"I'm not answering that."

"Just don't like the power go to your head like it did with Paul, okay? Or was his head always that big? Maybe it was, you never know," Edge mused.

Chris tried to ignore him, but his mind was wandering. He would _never _act like Paul did when he got the power. He would never try to use Stephanie like that. He should tell her that, as soon as he got backstage, if she was still there, he should tell her that. He let a little smile come to his face thinking about how she might react to that. He knew she didn't really see Paul for what he was worth, but he'd make her see when he acted like the complete opposite to Paul's overbearing nature.

Before he knew it, thank God, it was his time to shine in the match. His and Edge's involvement was so sparse that it felt like nothing when he actually got into the ring. A Codebreaker and his part was pretty much finished. Edge would get his spear and they would be done for the evening, coming out with the tag titles. Flash and it was over and he was holding a belt and looking evil because his character was evil and they were the big bad main-eventers, coming to steal the titles away from those who'd actually worked for it. Oh well, they did what the bosses told them.

When he got backstage, his heart was beating quickly and it wasn't because he'd just finished a match. He watched Edge go to grab a water bottle and he made his escape, the only sign he'd been there the fluttering of curtains. Stephanie was leaning against the wall and he could just make her outline out in the dark. He walked over to her and she looked up at the noise, her head turning and he could hear her letting out a relieved sigh. She came over and hugged him around the neck, knowing he wasn't too sweaty because he'd barely exerted himself.

"Hey," she said, leaning up to kiss him, like she'd done this a million times. He could get used to kisses after matches. "I thought that match would never end."

"You and me both," he grumbled.

"What?"

"Edge was just bugging me, asking for answers or whatever," he said, trying to brush it off like it'd been nothing and not like it had been annoying all match long. "How are we doing?"

"Okay," she said, kissing him again. She wanted to get used to it, she wanted to do it again and again until it became a second nature. She wanted second nature with him. She'd had it with Paul and it had been nice, but she wanted it more with Chris. She wanted exciting. "I'm just waiting for something."

"What are we waiting for?" he asked with trepidation. Was Paul going to burst in and beat him up? Was that the end game?

"My brother," Stephanie said. "He's helping us."

"Your brother is helping us?" Chris asked, surprised. "I mean, I know that we're friends and everything, we've always been cool, but why is he helping us?"

"He loves me," she said, "he loves you too and he hates Paul."

"Oh, that's right, I forgot, unless you're an ass-kissing peon, Paul has no time for you and doesn't like you," Chris said.

"Chris," Stephanie said, looking off. His eyes had adjusted to the extremely dim light and he could see her head tilted down a little.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he told her, shaking his head. "It's going to take me a while to realize that I've won."

Stephanie's head snapped up and he could feel her eyes boring into his skin even if he couldn't quite see them clearly. So that's what burning skin felt like. "Won?" she asked, her voice coming with an edge that could slice bread. "You've won?"

"You know what I mean," he told her, kissing her forehead.

"Do I?" she asked. "Or do I have to push you through this curtain and let the wolves have at you?"

"You wouldn't, would you really want this mug to be had at?" he told her.

"I don't know, if you think I'm a contest, I might," she said, running her hand down her face before she felt her phone buzz. She looked down at it and pressed the button to read the text message from her brother. "Okay, so it's a go, we're going to go talk to my father now."

"Wait, what, right now?" Chris asked. He wasn't prepared for this. "What do you mean right now? Isn't he taking care of the show, I mean, your dad _never_ leaves the gorilla during a show unless the backstage is going to be shown on-air…"

"I know, but like I said, my brother is helping us."

"I thought we were going to talk to him afterwards," Chris said. He didn't have time to prepare any kind of speech and in a matter this big, he felt like there should be some sort of speech prepared, maybe some note cards, a flowchart, _something_. "You know, after the show, when everything and everyone was gone."

"It's better now, we have to get to him first. He obviously hasn't heard about what happened because he's completely oblivious on show days. If Paul gets to him first, he's going to spin it. He's going to make it look either like I'm a slutty whore, which, I guess I kind of am-"

"You're not a whore," Chris told her, interrupting her rambling with the truth. "You're anything but a whore."

"Well, he'll spin it that way or in a way that makes it seem like you were taking advantage of me, which could be worse if he thinks that and then I come in and…I don't know, he could say something like you've been talking about doing this for ages now."

"So you _do_ see the dark side to him," Chris said knowingly, "because from what you just said, it doesn't sound like someone who sees Paul in a completely angelic light."

"I know he can be…trying sometimes, but he isn't as bad as people make him out to be and I stand by that," she said pressing her hand to his bare chest. "So come on, we've only got a little bit of time."

"How did you get your father away from his station?"

"Scare tactics," Stephanie said, her voice calm, like she was talking about something mundane.

"Okay, now you're just terrifying," Chris told her.

"What?"

"Scare tactics? That is such a McMahon thing to say," he said as she grabbed his hand and started pulling him towards the curtain.

"We're going to have to be quick. People are definitely going to stare. If everything is working out than Paul shouldn't be a problem. But yeah, people are going to stare, they may catcall, we have just got to keep our eyes forward and focused. It'll die down after a few weeks, I'm sure, I'm the boss, I'll make sure things die down. It's about time for another round of firing since it's the end of summer, start of a new season television-wise. That'll put the fear in them, I'll think of who we can fire later."

"Stephanie, I don't think I'm ready to face your father," he said, pulling her back gently.

"What? Why? You've talked to my father millions of times."

"Not as the man who is going to become…something with his _married_ daughter."

"The marriage is nearly over," she said, waving her hand in the air like marriage was a fly she was swatting at.

"You can't honestly believe this will be easy."

"Chris, the best things in life never are so come on, let's go."


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: Thanks for all the reviews, everyone, 100 of them, I'm so happy you like this story! Things are really progressing now and I'm glad you've been enjoying the story as much as you all have and it's been really fun to write as well. So I really hope you enjoy this chapter and I'd really love to know your thoughts so if you want to review, please feel free to do so. Enjoy! :)

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"Are you sure we have to do this now?"

"Chris, we've only got a little bit of time where we can corner him and talk to him about this," Stephanie said. "Look, I've made some huge life decisions tonight. I'm leaving my husband…for you…for me, I want to be with you."

"Is that the only reason you're leaving him?" Chris asked her. It was a lot to put on his shoulders if the only reason she was leaving her husband was to be with him. He always figured Stephanie had such high expectations of everyone and he wasn't sure he could live up to whatever high expectations she'd probably already put on him.

"Well no," she said, shaking her head a little, but very aware that they had very little time to start getting to her dad's office. "I mean, I don't know, if I'm so attracted to you and have been for so long, there must be something wrong with my marriage, don't you think?"

"No, it could just mean you're attracted to me."

"It's more than that," Stephanie said. "It's more than that because when I'm with you, everything feels like it changes. I've never had that with Paul, no matter how hard I've tried. It's like, when you're saving up your money to buy something big, but you don't know and you keep saying that you'll know what you want when you see it. I think, I think I've been using Paul to wait around for what I really wanted and I know it's you now."

"Wow," he said. That was really all the resolve he needed. If she was so sure, then he should feel the same way. When she put it like that, it was almost like his own situation. He loved Jessica in his own way for sure, but he felt like he'd been biding his time and all ahead of him he could just see an expanse of days with Stephanie. He liked looking forward to something that big.

"Are you ready, we've _really_ got to go, there's a whole orchestrated plan here that we're holding up," she told him, tugging on his hand.

He kissed her quickly. "I'm ready."

"It's about time."

She gripped his hand tighter, as if he would disappear if she let go. She didn't think he would, but she wasn't taking any chances on that front. They burst through the curtains, startling some of the people who'd been milling about. Everyone's eyes widened as the couple of the evening emerged as if from behind some red velvet curtain, bursting forth for their big premiere. Stephanie kept her eyes forward and Chris kept his eyes locked on their hands as she strode purposefully towards her father's office and Chris trailed after her.

He wasn't sure if she could hear, but he could hear the buzz beginning backstage. It had started with the people who had seen them enter from the curtain and it seemed to follow them, like a bunch of wasps, trailing after them with their sharp sting. He could only hear snippets as Stephanie kept them moving forward. He was glad she was in charge because he might give in and listen and then blow up at them all for trying to make sense of something they wouldn't understand, something he was still struggling to understand. The night had been such a whirlwind and every moment he felt like he was trying to catch his breath. But he imagined that's what real life-changing events did to a person. It was like when he'd had his first child, his Ash and his breath had been so taken away from the magnitude of the situation. That's what this felt like, one of those moments where he knew everything was going to change, but for the better.

"Eyes forward, Irvine," Stephanie hissed. They were almost to her father's office when she turned around abruptly, seeing everyone watching them, everything at a standstill. "Excuse me," she said loudly, "I'm pretty damn sure the Pay-Per-View is not over. So if you value your jobs, you will all get back to work immediately and mind your own damn business before I decide to start handing out pink slips like Halloween candy!"

Everyone scattered quickly and Chris muttered, "Damn," under his breath.

"My love life is _not_ front page news," she told him firmly as she pushed her way into her father's office. "Assholes, stupid gossips."

He smiled at Stephanie as she said that. He loved the passion she had for everything. He could imagine there not being one dull moment with her in his life. She was vibrant, like the brightest colors splashed across a canvas. They went inside her father's office and he was sitting in his chair, head in hands, looking so relieved that Chris could practically feel the waves of it coming off him and he didn't even know what was really going on. Stephanie had had a plan with Shane, that's about all he knew of the situation. The details had eluded him, but whatever the two McMahons had concocted had certainly worked. Stephanie dropped his hand and stepped forward.

"Daddy, what's wrong?" she said in a small voice, one that he would soon learn she only used when she wanted information out of her father.

"I just…there was a huge misunderstanding over something and I'm very relieved that it did not come to fruition," he told her, sitting up and smiling at her, almost not noticing Chris, almost. His eyebrows knitted together as he saw Chris there and Chris was glad that Stephanie had dropped his hand.

"What kind of misunderstanding?" Chris had to hand it to her; she was doing an excellent job acting like she didn't know what was up.

"Nothing you need to worry about, what are you doing here, both of you?"

"Chris, sit," she said and he obeyed like a puppy dog. He figured he would let her take the reins with this one. He hoped in their relationship she would let him have the upper-hand once in a while, but he was starting to think that he was going to be whipped for this girl. Surprisingly, he didn't have a problem with this.

Stephanie sat next to him. "Dad, there are some things _we_ needed to discuss with you and time is of the essence so it's almost perfect that you are here since after the show might be too late."

"Chris, are you leaving because we _just _gave you the belts and you'd be leaving us awfully high and dry," Vince said, placing his hands on the desk in front of him, any misunderstandings quickly put in the past in the face of new problems. "Your contract isn't officially up yet either, so this would really be a breach of contract unless you have some kind of family emergency."

"No, there's no emergency," Chris said, feeling a little croaked so he cleared his throat. "This is more of a…personal wrestling matter, I guess."

"Personal wrestling matter? Are you injured, did you get injured earlier in your match against Rey, I don't really see how you could have been injured in your tag team match all things considered. Hell, I'm surprised you'd be injured at all."

"No, I'm fine."

"Dad, some things happened tonight and things are going to get back to you and before they do and before they get skewed and all the words get turned into exaggeration, we wanted to come to you with them, to tell you the truth, to tell you what happened before you hear it from someone else."

Vince looked between the two of them. This seemed suspicious. "What would have happened that everything got skewed? I'm not understanding."

Stephanie sighed. "Dad, I've been attracted to Chris for a very long time. I never really did anything about it because I'm married and I thought that I was happy and Chris is married and everything and we played by the rules."

"I was attracted to Stephanie too," Chris said quickly so as not to make Vince think that his feelings for his daughter were ungenuine. "I didn't do anything for the same reasons. I didn't want to ruin her reputation or anything like that."

"Okay," Vince said, the picture starting to become clearer, but he wanted to hear what they had to say before he would say anything. There was obviously more to the story than they were saying right now, which was only the beginning.

"Well, I guess, tonight, it just broke between the two of us," Stephanie said, glancing over at Chris and he gave her a reassuring and warm smile. "I think it's been a long time coming. I think I've felt this way since our first storyline, I don't think the tension between us was feigned."

"I've thought she was beautiful since the day I met her," Chris told her and it was really the first time he'd said that and the way she looked at him just then did more to convince Vince this was really going on than anything they had actually said.

Stephanie continued. "We kissed, neither one of us kissed the other first, it was a mutual thing. We just couldn't hold back our feelings any longer. It just…it wasn't possible for us. Unfortunately, we were in the production truck because Chris was recording some promo stuff and we accidentally hit the button for the closed-circuit television."

"We were broadcast over the entire arena," Chris said. "We were just kissing, there was nothing else that went on."

"But everyone saw that was near the monitors and so everyone knows that we were kissing and the rumors have already been spreading all evening, you just haven't heard them because you've been working and we really needed to see you first before it got back to you. We weren't having sex in the truck, we were just kissing. We're not having an affair, this is the first incident. We knew that someone, most likely Paul, would come find you and try to tell you and it was important to us that you heard it from us first."

Vince leaned back in his seat. "This is a lot to take in. I kind of feel bombarded with information right now. But I have to ask, what is going to happen now?"

"I want to be with Chris," she told him resolutely. "I want to divorce Paul and be with Chris."

Vince looked to Chris and he nodded. "I want to be with Stephanie."

"Are you sure?" Vince said. "If this is the first time, you know, it's a big decision for the both of you. You can't go into something like this lightly. Stephanie, you have the girls and Chris, I know you have kids too, are you sure about this? Don't you think you should take more than one night thinking this over?"

"I know what I want," Chris said. "I like to think Stephanie does as well.

"I do," Stephanie said.

"Okay, well, you're both adults, I can't _tell_ you what to do, but can I ask you to do something?" he said, looking between the both of them.

"It depends on what it is," Stephanie said and she was wondering if this was a tactic to get her to change her mind and stay with Paul. Her father liked Paul and probably didn't want them to get divorced. Paul was the epitome of wrestler to her father. He was built and tall and wrestling was pretty much the only thing he _ever_ thought of. There wasn't much more in his life than wrestling. There were the girls, but Paul was not a hands-on father. It was not to say that he didn't love his children, he did, but he wasn't good with them. He was not gentle, he was intense and it just didn't make for a very fun father, but he did try. Other than that, it was wrestling, wrestling, wrestling, and then more wrestling.

"I want you to take tonight, both of you, just take the night and think about it, really think about if this is what you want. Right now, it can still stay an isolated incident, a momentary lapse, but if you make this into something more, then it affects more lives, it will affect your spouses and your children. Take tonight, think and then tomorrow, or the day after, when things are settled and everything has died down, then you two can talk and if it's what you want…well, it's what you want."

"You're not…mad?" Stephanie asked.

"I'm disappointed it was broadcast all over television, but it's your lives and if it's what you want, it's what I want for you."

"But you love Paul."

"I like Paul, yes, I even love him as my son-in-law, but he's _not_ my son, but you _are_ my daughter, so I love you more. I want you to do what's right for you."

"I think what he's saying is fair," Chris told her softly. "We could just take the night…"

"I don't want to go back with Paul," she said quickly, shaking her head. "I don't want to be anywhere near him."

"We'll get you your own room," Chris told her. "I won't even bug you or anything tonight. I think it would be good to think things through and we can talk tomorrow, set a time and then talk."

"You think so," she said, leaning in closer to him. "Are you going to change your mind?"

He leaned in so only she could hear and winked at her so her father couldn't see, "No, are you?"

"No," she told him, biting her lip a little.

"Then let's do it," he told her.

"Okay," she nodded. She pulled back and looked at her father. "Thanks, Dad, we're going to take your advice and think it over tonight."

"Good, I'm glad," he told them. "As long as you're happy, I will support you."

Except the answer was already pretty clear.


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: Thanks for all the reviews everyone, I really appreciate it, they really make my day. So hope you enjoy the chapter and please leave a review if you want, I would love to hear from you. :)

* * *

"And here are your room keys, Ms. Levesque."

She cringed a little when the man said her name like that and she glanced over at Chris, but his face seemed unchanged. It sounded odd to her ears now, that name, as if it had somehow floated away from her. She'd always felt like it was incongruent to the rest of her name, which was why she'd never fully taken it. It didn't sound as good as McMahon, but then nothing really did. She tried to affix Irvine to the end of it instead, _Stephanie McMahon-Irvine, Stephanie Irvine_. She liked it, it had a flow to it that Levesque didn't.

"Steph?" Chris's voice brought her out of her high school-like reverie. "Where were you just now?"

"Nowhere," she said, giving him a lopsided grin to hide her embarrassment over thinking about something as juvenile like how her name sounded next to Chris's.

"You want me to walk you up to your room or…do you want to say goodnight here?" he asked and with the way he was asking, she knew he wanted to walk her up to her room. She thought it sweet that he wanted to spend as much time with her as he could or that he was trying to be her bodyguard of sorts.

She hadn't seen Paul since she and Chris had ducked out of the arena following their talk with Vince. Vince had told them that he or Shane would speak with Paul if the subject came up and Stephanie was grateful she had a family that actually cared about her and not the kind they portrayed on television, where they were all out for themselves and only themselves. Chris had conveniently been staying at a different hotel than she and Paul had been staying at so it was just a matter of grabbing her things from her hotel room (where Chris had stood guard outside the door) and then heading to Chris's hotel. He kept glancing around quickly, taking in the immediate area, making sure she was safe.

"You should walk me up, just in case," she told him, though she knew he knew that she could've made it up there of her own accord, but just wanted more time with him. She reached down and took his hand with her free one, her keycard and suitcase in her other while he pulled his suitcase with his free hand. They walked over to the elevators and got inside. "So what time did you want to meet tomorrow morning? Do you think we should set a time?"

"The moment you wake up?" he suggested, raising an eyebrow and she laughed. He leaned down to press a kiss to her lips, stifling her airy giggle. "Hell, any time you want to see me, I'll be there."

"You're awfully sure of what you want then?" she asked playfully, but with a hint of truth to the sentence.

"I see this night as a formality at best," Chris told her as the elevator stopped on her floor. They glided out of the box and to her room. She opened it and invited him inside. He went in and sat on the couch and she put her things in the bedroom. "I don't think I'm going to change my mind…I've wanted this for a while."

She came in and smiled at him, sitting on the couch next to him. She reached out and rubbed his muscular arm, "I have too. Are you going to call Jessica tonight? I know that we should wait until the morning to really evaluate the next steps here, but I don't know how often you call your wife…"

"I'll probably call to say goodnight to the kids," Chris said, bringing their kids to the forefront again. They both stopped to pause and think about their children. "Things are going to be really different for them, don't you think?"

"I imagine so, yes," Stephanie nodded slightly. "But we can make it work."

"We live in two different states," he pointed out and the reality of the situation was starting to peek around the edges of their night.

It was easy to forget the logistics when you were running around an arena, hiding under tables, and making out in bathrooms. But they weren't in any of those places now, they were sitting here, alone, no threat of Paul lurking just around the corner and it was time to face the real consequences. The world inside the arena was so different from the world outside it. Outside it they were two people standing on the precipice to something huge. They were making life-altering decisions, ones that not only affected themselves, but a lot of other lives too.

"I can see now why my dad thought we should take the night to think it over," she said, looking over earnestly at Chris. "There's a lot to consider here."

"There is," Chris said and it looked like the weight of everything as plowing down on him too, like an avalanche, the snow burying him up to his neck and freezing him. "It was just…tonight I guess we were so distracted with not getting caught out that we didn't stop to really think about what we were doing."

"Yeah, my dad has an uncanny knack for making you crash right back down to Earth," Stephanie said. "Maybe this night thing is a really good idea, do you maybe want to meet for lunch tomorrow or…or did you have a flight home?"

"I think lunch would be good, how about noon down at that café across the street?" he told her.

"Yeah, I can do that and we both have to show up and talk, it can't be like _Love Story_ where if one of us doesn't show then we know that they didn't want this to happen, we have to sit and talk, deal?" she said, sticking her hand out.

"Okay, deal," he told her, shaking her hand. "I better get going so we can start this night off."

"Okay," she agreed, standing up as he did and walking him to the door. "Chris, I just want you to know, if you don't want to do this, if you change your mind, I'm not going to be mad at you, I wouldn't even be mad if you didn't want it and decided not to tell Jessica about it. I know it's a hard decision."

"Do you think Paul would take you back if you decided you didn't want to do it?"

"Yes, he would, but only because of the power I can afford him, the name that comes with me, but I wouldn't let him. I don't think it's in the cards for me and Paul to be honest, but I guess that's why we have the night to think about it."

"Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow, Steph," Chris said, leaning forward and kissing her cheek. "Sleep well."

"Thanks," she said as she closed the door behind her.

The rest of the night was weird for her. Though she followed her usual routine, taking a shower, getting ready for bed, calling her mom to check on the girls, everything felt slightly off that night. It wasn't necessarily a bad off, but it was just off. She climbed under the covers of her bed and tried to fall asleep, but she was finding it difficult as her mind kept wandering towards Chris and the situation they were now facing. If she was to be with Chris, then she would have to change her entire life for it, but was her life really that spectacular right now?

She didn't hate Paul, she never had. He wasn't the best husband or father in the world, but he had never been bad at it. He had his temper, but so did she and though he was not much for children, he quite obviously loved their daughters in his own way. He may not be totally touchy-feely and involved with them, but he loved them just the same. Would it be fair for her daughters to break that up? But then she thought about Chris. He'd brought his children around a few times for wrestling shows and they were always climbing all over him and he never minded. Whenever they were here, he'd always have one of his daughters in his arms. Paul always felt uncomfortable holding their daughters, saying he was always afraid he was going to drop them. He had reason for concern though, when Aurora was an infant, she was very squirmy and he had almost dropped her so she couldn't blame his apprehension.

She wasn't saying that Chris would be a better step-father than their real father and there she was getting ahead of herself. If she was with Chris, there was nothing that dictated they would get married. That was scary, giving up what ultimately amounted to a settled life by most standards to something that might not even last. Despite her burgeoning feelings for Chris, she couldn't say for sure that she was in love with him because she wasn't and she couldn't say they would be together forever because she didn't know if they would be together forever. The best she could hope for was forever, but forever was never assured.

Still, could she go back to that life now? She'd gotten a piece of Chris and her senses had seemed dulled to everything else while he was this burst of color. Could she go back to being nothing with him, ignore that feeling that welled up inside of her whenever she was around him? They'd spent so many years obviously ignoring this feeling between the two of them and now that she had a little bit of it, could she really go back to being nothing with him, mere friends, acquaintances? She wasn't sure she could go back to that now, but could they really move forward with things without complicating a lot of lives?

She just wished she knew what he was thinking right now because it might make her thoughts easier if she knew what he was going through. But they had promised not to talk to each other until tomorrow and she had to parse out her own feelings before she spoke with him. She sighed and turned over on her side. She stared out into the blankness and thought more about her daughters. How would they fare if they were thrown into a family with three more children? Would they thrive or get lost in the shuffle. She'd never been part of a blended family and though she knew that Chris had a step-sister, they hadn't grown up together. There were just so many things to consider and her hand itched to call Chris.

She closed her eyes, but still, the thoughts ran through her mind and they were too fast to catch and hold onto for longer than a few moments. She finally just sat up and turned on the television, hoping that it would distract her. Then she remembered she'd turned off her phone and though that perhaps she should check it, let it give her something to distract her from her thoughts. She had five messages from Paul, but she ignored them, knowing it would most likely just be a lot of him screaming at her and demanding to know where she is. She didn't need that right now when her thoughts were already so jumbled together.

She tried the whole sleep thing again and she thought she was going to fall asleep this time, but then there was a knock on the door. She got out of bed, fully expecting it to be Paul. He probably went from hotel to hotel trying to find her. She looked through the peephole and saw it was Chris. "Chris, what are you doing here?" she asked through the door.

"Can you open the door?"

"Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"No, but can you open it anyways?" he asked. She opened it a little and he smiled at her. "If you're anything like me, you haven't slept at all, have you?"

"No, I haven't," she admitted and let him back inside. "I've been thinking and thinking about it and the more I think about it-"

"The more impractical it seems, right?" he finished for her and she nodded. He nodded too and stepped forward, taking her face in his hands and kissed her. She fell into the kiss, letting him pull her closer to his body, pressing them against each other. His hands slid down the sides of her body to rest lightly on her waist as he arms wrapped around his neck.

"Chris…"

"It might seem stupid, Steph, it might seem like there's all these obstacles, but I want you, I want to be with you, I don't need a night or even a few more minutes, I just know what I know, complications and all, repercussions and everything, I know I want this, I don't care about the rest of the night, we've wasted enough time already."

"So all those things we're thinking about?"

"We'll make it work," he told her. "Do you want to make it work with me?"

"I've never wanted anything more."


	12. Chapter 12

A/N: Thanks for the reviews, everyone, I really appreciate hearing the feedback you all have so thank you. Hope you enjoy this chapter. :)

* * *

Stephanie blinked her eyes open and tried to snuggle against her pillow, but found her pillow quite hard. She stretched her body like a cat and then rolled over onto her back and was staring at the slumped over form of Chris Irvine. She remembered talking with him last night, all night pretty much about nonsensical things, learning more about the other without bringing any of the heavier topics into focus. They'd mutually decided that the big stuff could wait until the morning where fresher heads would prevail. She smiled dreamily as she remembered the hours spent learning all his favorites, about his childhood, as he described various members of his family. She felt closer to him than she had when his lips had been on hers.

They'd eventually fallen asleep, it seemed, in the same position they'd last been in. She'd been lying on his lap, looking up at him while he spoke and was running his fingers through her hair. His hand was still close to her head and she must have fallen asleep first with Chris following close behind. His chin was on his chest while his head was resting lightly on his shoulder, a thin line of drool just peeking at the corner of his mouth. His short hair was falling over his forehead a little bit and he looked adorable and she wondered how many mornings she was going to wake up to this face.

She hoped for many.

She reached her hand up and ran her hand down his cheek, feeling the light tickle of new stubble. He'd have to go back to his room to shave and get dressed, but they could stay here a little while longer. His eyes squinted open ever so slightly, then closed again before they opened fully as he wondered what was touching his cheek. He stared down at Stephanie, who was grinning now and he smiled sleepily, trying to shake the exhaustion from his bones. He lifted his head up, her hand losing contact with his face and stretched his arms over his head, hearing a crack from his neck after being in one position for so long.

"What time is it?" he asked.

I don't know," she told him. Chris shifted around, making her move and sit up before he grabbed his cell phone out of his pajama bottoms. He pressed the button and looked at the time.

"1:25," he said, "looks like I missed my meeting time with this girl I really wanted to see."

"Oh yeah, I had to meet with someone too at noon," she said, snapping her fingers, "oh well, I can't say that I'm disappointed with the present company."

"I can't say I am either," he said. "Do you maybe want to get dressed and ready and then go for lunch?"

"Actually, before we do that, I think we should talk about the big stuff and get it out of the way," she said gamely. She really wanted everything out there in the open and the way Chris nodded, she could tell that he wanted it out there as well. For as much talking as they did the night before, there was still so much they had to hash out. "Do you love me, Chris?"

"Wow, going straight to the big guns, aren't we?" he said, then thought for a moment before he slowly started to answer, carefully picking and choosing the words that best described his feelings for Stephanie. "I believe you've asked me this before."

"I feel like it's been a million years since last night."

"I think love will certainly come and it'll probably come fast," he told her. "I think it's really just right there and we have to grab it, do you love me?"

"I feel the same way, I want something deeper than just a fling with you."

"I do too."

"We're married," she said, "that's going to have to be rectified for the both of us. Paul and I signed a prenup, I wasn't going to get married without him, not a chance. He'll be angry, hell, he's probably plotting your downfall right now, but my dad won't stand for that. I honestly think Paul will probably be angrier at the loss of power than he will about me."

"I'm _so_ glad you're finally seeing what everyone has been trying to tell you for _years_," Chris said, brushing her hair over her shoulder. "It's about time you saw him for the douchebag he is. So of course, you'll just go ahead and divorce him and rectify that horrible situation."

"And you?"

"Jessica and I are as good as done. She might protest a little, but I'll file anyways, do you think your dad could recommend some good lawyers?"

"Yeah, I'm sure he can," she told him. "Divorce seems so easy, doesn't it? Just this clear separation from a life. I know it's really not that easy and that it'll probably get messy with the kids, which we haven't even addressed yet, but overall, it's like, divorce is just…I don't know…like a scissors cut, snipping someone from your life."

"And that brings up the subject of the kids…Jessica's going to want them and well, I travel…"

"I'll have mine," she said. "I don't think Paul can…handle them, not that he's bad at it, just…not as good. He doesn't really know how to be a father so…Chris, would you want the kids…I mean, would you want physical custody of them? Is Jessica a good mom?"

"I think she's like Paul," Chris said, "or at least what you described. She's a mom and she does the mom thing, but I've always gotten the sense that her heart wasn't necessarily into it. I mean, not that she doesn't love them, she absolutely does, just that she wasn't born to be a mom."

"I can understand that, I think," Stephanie said, "I've always wanted a big family, but I'm thinking long-term here…well, wait, first of all, where are we going to live? I don't need that huge house, it was nice with Paul because then we'd have our own spaces…I should have pretty much seen this coming when we needed separate wings of the house sometimes, huh?"

"We all need our space, but yeah, about the living situation…I mean, do you want us…"

"Do you think that would be rushing it?" Stephanie asked. "I don't want to startle the kids, I think that we should wait on that, but maybe we could look for houses that are relatively near each other, we could even just rent for a while, that way if things become more…permanent we can find a better place to live."

"You're so smart, you think of everything," he told her.

"Believe me, I'm winging it here," she told him. "I don't know what I'm doing, I've never done anything like this before, but I figure if I look at this as kind of business-like-"

Chris cut her off with a kiss and she leaned against him, trying to get more before he pulled away, pecking her on the lips before doing so, "I don't know how I'd handle this without you."

"You wouldn't have anything to handle if you were without me," she joked and he nodded at the irony. "So what do you think about that arrangement?"

"I think it's perfect. I just wish I could see my kids more I guess."

"Well, I think…and it's why I asked if Jessica would want physical custody that if things work out with us, I'd be more than willing to take my desk job exclusively. I pretty much work at Titan most of the time anyways, as you know, so if we were to work out, I would like if the kids could stay with us, if Jessica didn't mind, I just…I'm thinking way too far into the future, aren't I?"

"Maybe, but I like it," he told her. "I like that we're planning and that this is becoming something tangible. Maybe once I talk things out with Jessica, I can fly up to Connecticut and we could start looking for those places we could live."

"Yeah, I'd really like that," Stephanie said.

It was scary to be standing on the precipice of something like this, but exhilarating as well. They knew that it could end up being a bad decision, maybe they weren't even right for each other, but there was something there they had to explore, something that had always been there that they'd been ignoring for too long, that circumstance had gotten in the way of; there was just no way they could keep ignoring it. All their happiness might be right in front of them but it they didn't snatch it, it might float away.

"I'm going to get dressed and maybe shower," Stephanie said. "Did you want to meet me in like an hour and get some food?"

"Yeah, I'd like that," he said, glancing back down at the phone in his hand.

"Did she call?" Stephanie asked.

"No," Chris said. "She never really does anymore. She used to call me in the mornings just to say hey, you know, that she missed me. I guess I got used to it and now…well, it stopped around the time she got pregnant with the twins. I think she was mad about it."

"The babies?"

"Just being pregnant, she was pretty miserable with them, it was a difficult pregnancy. It changed her, it changed us, after that, I don't think things could ever be the same."

Stephanie nodded, "Chris, are you sure that you want to do this? I just don't want you to question it down the line and resent me for getting you to do this."

"I didn't get you to do anything," Chris shook his head. "This is my choice you, you didn't coerce me or anything."

"I know, it just feels like it."

"Don't, really, last night was…crazy," Chris said. "Today might be even crazier and tomorrow could be crazier than tomorrow, but hell, haven't our lives been pretty crazy up until this point. Look at the business we're in, we're used to this kind of thing, we just have to take it as it comes, just like everything else in our lives."

"You're right," she said, grabbing her own phone which was sitting on a table. She turned it on and sighed, "I have 32 messages and I'm pretty sure that the majority of those are going to be from Paul. I'm not looking forward to seeing him."

"Do you want me there? I'll go with you if you want me to, if you don't want to face him alone. I have no problem supporting you."

"That would be nice," she came over and squeezed his hand. "I think I would like you there, but I think I'd also like my father there as well…I know, I know, hear me out though because I think it would be a good idea if he were there just to facilitate things and that way Paul wouldn't try to beat you up."

"Aww, look at you, already looking out for me," he teased, "but Stephanie, I can take care of myself."

"Yeah, that's what every guy says and I know that you're not most guys and that you actually _can_ take care of yourself, but you've never dealt with a man whose wife you just…stole? Is that a good word for it, did you steal me?"

"You're not a possession so no, I don't think that I stole you."

"Yeah, I didn't think I was, but still, this is how Paul will view it and if we're going to meet with him, I think we're going to need the buffer there."

"You know he'll just corner me later, right?"

"I'll make sure that doesn't happen. I've looked over Paul's contract numerous times, I wouldn't mind looking again to make sure that he can't do anything to you. His career is extremely important to him so he'll fold with this. I'm going to call my dad."

"I'm going to go shower," he walked over to her and kissed her on the forehead before kissing her temple, then her cheek and kissing her on the lips. "I'll come get you in an hour okay, don't let anyone in, if you catch my drift."

"He doesn't know where I am," she said, kissing him again. "I'll see you."

Chris slipped out of the room, looking around to make sure the coast was clear. He blew a kiss to Stephanie before leaving and she sighed dreamily. They were still in that honeymoon phase and she knew it wouldn't stay that way, but already, he was so different from the more serious Paul. She looked down at her phone again, quickly scanning through the calls and texts, only looking at the ones she wanted to, which was from her mother, reporting that the girls were doing well and couldn't wait to see her. She smiled and sent a text back saying she loved them and would call in a bit. Then she dialed her dad's number.

"Vince McMahon here."

"Hi, Dad, it's me," Stephanie said, "I wanted to talk to you."

"Have you spoken with Chris?"

"Yes, I have, and our feelings and decisions haven't changed," Stephanie told him.

"I didn't think they would," Vince told her.

"You didn't?"

"I'm not blind nor am I stupid, Stephanie. I figured you two had been sleeping together for years."

"Dad!" she said, turning beet red and glad nobody was there to see her. "We haven't…but…I haven't told Paul yet and I was hoping that you could call a meeting with him and we could discuss this with you as a buffer, do you think that would be okay?"

"And you're absolutely sure of what you want?"

"Absolutely."

"Then I'll call Paul."


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: Thanks for the reviews, hope you enjoy the chapter, reviews are welcome. :)

* * *

"He's not going to be happy with this."

"Of course he won't," Chris said, "but we've decided this is what's best."

"He's going to want to kill you."

"You don't think I know that," Chris chuckled. "Stephanie, I'm pretty much prepared for the entire arena to somehow be booby-trapped with poison darts and snake pits and a big boulder. Trust me, I'm prepared for how angry he's going to be."

"I don't think you are, I don't think you realize how much he dislikes you," Stephanie told him, stopping him in the hallway. Her father had called earlier to tell her that he'd called Paul in for a meeting and that Paul didn't suspect what it was going to be about. He figured it would be better if Paul didn't know what was coming so that his anger wouldn't triple before the meeting even began.

"I think I do."

"No, I don't think you do," Stephanie said. "The time I spent hearing about all the things you supposedly did."

"Stephanie," he told her, placing his hands gently on her shoulders. "There's still time to pull out of this. I just feel like you're kind of hyperbolizing this Paul hate for me and maybe you're scared and you don't want to-"

"Or maybe you should really believe me when I tell you that Paul hates you, did you ever think of that?" she asked him, running her hand down the side of her face. "I've been in the same bed as that man, have you?"

"This would be way more awkward if I had," he told her.

"Yeah, well then you never had to fall asleep with him muttering about how you got something he wanted when you won the Undisputed Championship and he wanted it even though he hadn't been cleared to wrestle. And that was just one time. You saw how he was with our storylines together. Now imagine his reaction to that and multiply it ten-fold. That's what I've had to go through."

"And you're not exaggerating?" he asked.

"Have you ever known me to exaggerate?"

"Yes, I have," Chris told her, leaning his forehead against hers. "But I'm going to believe you and don't worry okay, whatever happens, I'm not going anywhere. Whatever he says I'm not going to back down."

"I know."

"I just want to make sure you know that I'm going full steam ahead with this. As soon as I get home, I'm leaving my wife, I mean, I hope you know that's how far this is, that's how far I'm into this."

"I know," she repeated. "I guess I'm just scared."

"Hell, Steph, I'm scared too, this is a huge change for the both of us, but we're going to do it and we're going to make it."

It seemed like all the charm that was in the air the night before had dissipated into the reality of this day. Sure, it was all fun and games when they were running around and getting lost and hiding in dark spaces. But the sunlight brought the truth they'd have to face and that truth was the fact that they were making huge life-changing decisions today. It felt like the day should really have more magnitude, like there should be more to it, like they should have woken up and the day should have been stormy or overcast or _something_ should have been different. It shouldn't have just been another day.

Chris was tugging on her hand and she followed him down the hallway, letting him guide her to their next destination. It was him that stopped in front of the office set up for her father at tonight's Raw and it was him who knocked on the door. It was also him that opened the door when her father called out to them and him that pulled her inside. Stephanie immediately saw a bodyguard standing behind her father, a burly man with a shaved head and a tattoo on his neck. Then her head flicked to the left where Paul was standing up.

"What the hell?" he said gruffly, nearly growling. "What the hell are they doing here?"

"Stephanie is the one to actually call this meeting and she wanted me here," Vince replied, sensing the tension ratcheting higher and higher and glancing towards the bodyguard.

"What the hell, Stephanie, you call your daddy to solve all your problems, get your goddamn hands off her," Paul said, starting towards Chris and Stephanie. Chris pushed Stephanie behind him a little and stood firm against Paul.

"I'm not going anywhere, Paul," Chris told him through gritted teeth. "You've got another thing coming to you if you think that I am."

"She's _my_ wife, you asshole," Paul told her, "so you better just step the hell away from her before I make you."

"You're not making me do anything," Chris told him. "Look, I don't want this to escalated into anything, but believe me, if you want to start something with me, I will finish it with you."

"I'd like to see you try."

"Believe me, I would _love_ to make some of your teeth permanently leave your mouth, but I'm not some violent caveman like you are," Chris said. "I want to talk."

"Talk!" Paul yelled. "I don't want to fucking talk to you, I want my fucking wife to stop acting like an idiot and get the hell away from you."

"Not happening," Chris shook his head.

"Okay, can we please sit down?" Vince asked and Paul whipped his head to the side and glared at the man like he wanted to kill him too. "Let me remind both of you that you are my employees and I would not hesitate to suspend either one of you for a lengthy amount of time."

"I'm not staying here for this bullshit!" Paul yelled, walking past Stephanie and Chris to the door.

"I want a divorce," Stephanie told him and he slowly turned, his head down a little bit, looking at her as his eyes narrowed. "That's why you're here. I want a divorce and I'm not asking you for one, I'm telling you that I'm going to have one."

"What!" he screamed and this time the bodyguard stepped away from the wall he was leaning on and started across the room a little bit. "Come on, we're leaving. You humiliated me last night, do you have any idea the looks I was getting, I love you for all these years and-"

"Did you?" Stephanie asked, shaking her head a little. "Look, Paul, I did love you, but we both know this isn't working out-"

"And now you give me some bullshit answer so you can go and fuck this bastard," Paul said, heaving breaths making him look hulking almost. "How long has this been going on, huh, Stephanie? How long have you been letting him stick your dick in you!"

"Paul!" Vince said sharply. "Do _not_ talk to my daughter like that!"

"Like what, Vince, like the whore that she is. You didn't even see them last night, did you, making out for everyone to see, all over the fucking TV's and I'm standing there like an idiot because my wife can't keep her legs closed."

"Shut up," Chris said, about to rear his arm back and punch him, but Stephanie grabbed his arm and knew that if this escalated to physicality, it would get ugly and she wasn't sure even that huge bodyguard and her father could stop it. Hell, with Paul's rage right now, she wasn't sure the entire roster could stop it.

"No, I'm not going to stop because she's a slut!" Paul threw more verbal insults at her. "You're a dirty whore. Was he good? Huh, Stephanie? Is he just one in a long line of guys that you've fucked behind my back? Now you want a divorce? Now you found someone you want to fuck more, you whore?"

"I'm telling you right now to shut your fucking mouth," Chris said, losing it.

"How does your wife feel about this, huh, Chris? Do you think your kids want to know that their daddy is fucking a whore?"

"Don't you even dare!" Chris said and he was lunging for Paul and Stephanie was trying to pull him back, but he was stronger than her. Chris laid the first punch, hitting Paul on the jaw. It startled Paul and he stumbled against the door. Chris took the opportunity and started laying punches on his face. "Don't ever talk about my kids jackass!"

Suddenly, he was pulled away and he looked over shoulder at the bodyguard who'd pulled him away. Stephanie's face was shocked, her eyes wide and her hand over her mouth and he realized how crazed he'd become. He took a few deep breaths to try and calm himself before he shook the other man off and stepped back next to Stephanie. She linked her arm with his and kissed his cheek and he felt calmer because of it.

"Will you three sit down?" Vince said, trying to diffuse the situation, even as his brain turned towards a storyline that would be sure to get ratings. Even when his daughter was in distress, his business-like mind couldn't stop. "You're adults."

Stephanie pulled Chris down into a seat, but Paul made no attempt to move closer. The bodyguard was now in front of the door, preventing his escape, but he'd be damned if he sat next to them so he leaned against the wall. "You're all bastards," Paul muttered.

"Stephanie, would you like to continue?" Vince sad.

"Um, yes," Stephanie said. "Paul, I'm not happy and I haven't been for a while-"

"Because you've been fucking behind my back," he groused.

"No, it's not that, I haven't been, what happened last night wasn't meant to be seen, obviously, but I'm glad it was because it made me examine a lot of things and I'm just not happy with you. I conditioned myself to think that I was and I wasn't and I think I'd just be happier outside this marriage."

"So you can fuck that guy."

"It's…not," Stephanie struggled. This meeting was going differently than she expected. There was certainly an anger to Paul, but it was like he was holding it in and that scared her. She knew it was probably because her father was here and she almost wished she'd just done this face to face so he could blow up at her and then she wouldn't have to deal with him again. But it was like he was creating a mask for this moment and that later, he would corner her and really unleash his anger and it wouldn't just be on her, but it would be on Chris as well.

"You're not getting out of this so easily," Paul said.

"Are you threatening my daughter?" Vince asked. "Because I will make your life miserable if you're threatening my daughter."

"So she's the one who makes out with someone and humiliates me and _I'm _the one who gets punished. This is fucking unbelievable, but you better believe I'm not letting you get away with this Stephanie. As for you, Chris, you're a dead man. You can't be protected all the time."

"Whatever," Chris told him. Paul smirked and just looked at him.

"There will be none of this," Vince said. "You lay one hand of him or her and you're out of here. I don't care who you are, you are not above being suspended or fired."

"Paul, this is what it is. I'm sorry that you had to see what happened."

"Were you sleeping with him last night?" Paul asked. "I'll take you to the fucking cleaners, Stephanie. You cheated on me and I will take every fucking penny you have. I'll be running this company so fast…"

"We have a pre-nup," she reminded him and she almost laughed at how he went from dangerous to deflated in mere seconds. "You're not getting any of it except the agreed upon amount that we both signed. But for the record, I didn't sleep with him. I've _never_ slept with him or any other guy here or outside of here. I've never cheated on you, but last night was a wake-up call. I'm tired of defending you to everyone when I don't even know what I'm defending anymore."

"You're all assholes," Paul said, shaking his head. "You're all a bunch of assholes."

He walked towards the door and he stared down the bodyguard. Vince nodded towards him and he moved out of the way, letting Paul leave. Stephanie sighed as she watched him go and put her head down. Chris reached out and rubbed the small of her back and she looked at him gratefully. She knew that he had his own scene coming with Jessica and suddenly, they seemed so foolish.

"That went better than I expected," Vince said.

"He's not done," Stephanie said quietly. "He's angry, he was just hiding it from you because there was security here. He's pissed off and I don't know what he's going to do, but he's pissed and he's not just going to let me divorce him. I should have seen it all along, everyone's always told me how horrible he is and I just never let myself see it, but it came out last night."

"I'm here though," Chris said, "he won't try anything."

"Don't be so sure."


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: Thanks for the reviews, hope you enjoy the story. :)

* * *

"I'm not going to live in fear because of him."

Stephanie sighed and ran her fingers through her hair, "That's not what I'm saying, Chris. I'm not saying that he's going to necessarily murder you or something. He wouldn't murder you though, I mean, he probably wouldn't. He definitely wouldn't…I don't think."

Chris had to laugh at her, "Stephanie, do you honestly think he's going to risk _jail_ to get at me? The man is in love with his job, there's no way he's going to commit a serious crime and face jail or the death penalty. I'm not worried."

"I know I shouldn't worry, but I am."

"Don't," he said, taking her hands. "Look, we're going to have some battles ahead of us, the both of us, but we're going to make it through them together."

"You're so sure," she said, stating rather than asking. She liked his resolve and conviction, but she wished she could find her own. For the first time in a long time, she felt like her eyes were being opened to something she hadn't previously seen. Paul had never exactly been the ideal husband, but he'd been a decent guy. She knew about his tempers and still, she stayed with him. She never really understood the talk and chatter that were constantly surrounding him, the sidelong glances and the snickers. She never _got _it.

But seeing the way he reacted today, seeing how he'd behaved yesterday, sure, he had some (a lot?) of justification for his anger, but the way he'd acted, it all reinforced what people had been trying to tell her for years and it was like she was finally seeing Paul for what he was and it wasn't necessarily that she hated him or suddenly thought he was the worst man in the universe, but it had revealed some truths she'd needed to see. Nobody was perfect, but perhaps her eyes had been _too_ blind to Paul's faults.

"Because I'm not afraid of the man. He's just a guy, Stephanie. And Jessica, well, things between Jessica and I have been strained already. I think we both know it's time to cut loose, at least I hope I do. We can make this work, I _want_ to make this work. I may have accidentally hit a button broadcasting our business to the world, but it might end up being one of my best decisions."

"Don't be sweet," she told him, shaking her head. "Just don't be so sweet."

"Why not?" he asked with a laugh. "You've got me now so I can be sweet to you and you can appreciate it all you want."

"That's right," Stephanie said. "Are you going to be okay going down to Florida without me? Do you want me to come with you? I can certainly come with you and be with you when you talk to Jessica and I'd love to formally meet your kids."

"I have to meet yours too, formally," Chris said, "whenever you're ready for that of course."

"Of course," Stephanie said with a nod. "I'm going home tomorrow, um, maybe you can wait to tell Jessica and I can fly down with my girls and we can meet up and we could talk to Jessica."

"I don't think it's going to be a good idea having you there, Steph," Chris said, "I appreciate the sentiment and everything, but I'm not sure bringing the woman I'm leaving my wife for is the best idea. It's just a thought."

She laughed, "God, what am I doing? Of course that's probably not how to go about things, didn't stop me from doing it that way though. Look at me, Chris, I'm doing everything wrong and I'm not used to that. I'm used to do everything right and just living on the straight and narrow and suddenly I've found myself completely unaware of what I'm doing."

"You know what you're doing, Steph," he said, hugging her and cradling her into his body. "I know that everything is so strange right now, but we've got to give things time to settle down. Last night was crazy; we weren't ourselves last night, it was like we were these two teenagers who were coming down from the high of our first time, but today we've become adults again and we know we have a lot of stuff to face. But you do know what you're doing and you _are_ in control."

"I feel like I'm careening," she admitted. "I'm not doubting myself, I'm just seeing all these things I have to do ahead of me. I have to find somewhere to live, I have to get my things and the girls' things and then we have to get used to one another and then our kids will have to try and mesh well, which is probably the least of my worries because my girls can get along with anything."

"Hey, so can mine, we have something in common," he told her.

"Don't make me feel better," she said, mumbling into his shirt as she buried her face against his chest. "I'm supposed to be scared out of my wits here."

"Hey, Chris!" Adam said, walking into the locker room, "Oops, didn't mean to interrupt, next time turn the camera on so that we can all know what you're doing in here."

"Very funny," Chris said, "what do you want?"

"We have a match later, wanted to discuss it, but I'll come back," he said with a smirk, "don't want to interrupt the two lovebirds."

Before either one of them could even refute the claim, Adam was out the door, leaving them alone again. "Jerk," Chris muttered good-naturedly. "I have a feeling that people are going to joke about us for a while."

"Which only stands to make Paul even angrier."

"Good, let him be angrier, I hope that he sees how much more people like me than him. In fact, I think we should start a new regime around here," he declared, pulling away from her so that he could look in her face.

"New regime?" she asked uncertainly. "What kind of new regime?"

"One where nobody thinks that just because I'm with you that I'm going to get special treatment," he told her, watching with a grin as the corners of her lips turned up in a small smile, "one where people are not afraid to come up and talk to you for fear that Paul will think that they're trying to get more power than he has."

"You want to be the anti-Paul is what you're saying?" she told him.

"I prefer to think of him as the anti-Christ, so I'll be the savior…hey, that works perfectly since I said that I was going to be the savior of the WWE. It took a little while, but looks like that prediction is coming true."

"Was he really _that_ bad?" she asked.

"Did I ever tell you the story right after I came into the company and how I thought he was a good guy and how he very abruptly changed that opinion?"

"I don't think I've heard the story, no," she said, wondering if she really was blind to everything. She knew Paul liked his power, but how far did he go behind her back? What kind of things did he really do? Now that he was going to be just another wrestler, what would he do? How would he react?

"Well, when I first came in, he told me that I could talk to him about anything, making the transition and all that, he even gave me his phone number and I thought, well, the stories I've heard about him must have been wrong. I'd heard about him since he was in the Kliq and some of those guys were over in WCW, so I heard the stories, but I thought, okay, they must have been overblown. So then one day I can't find the arena and so I think to myself, hey, you have Paul's number, why don't I call him up and ask him for directions. So I call him, he makes fun of me, hangs up. That was the last time I ever asked Paul for anything, let me tell you."

Stephanie shook his head, "I never knew that. I'm sorry he did that."

"It wasn't your fault and it was before you two were even together."

"He must have been worse when he started dating me and then married me."

"Well, yeah," Chris admitted, "but I didn't want to say anything, hell, nobody wanted to say anything because they were afraid that if you did anything against him, he would, in turn, demote you or have you de-pushed. I mean, he had to complain to you sometimes about guys randomly, right?"

"I guess, I just thought he was looking out for the company."

"Steph, I like you a lot, but you really need to see him for what he is and that's not a good guy."

"I'm obviously seeing that now, aren't I?" she said, turning away. "I feel like I've been duped. I always, _always_ gave him the benefit of the doubt. I just thought everything had to be overblown because maybe they were all jealous. I mean, the jealousy in this business is already high. I guess I just thought…"

"It's okay, you were in love with the guy and I'm sure part of you still loves him and that's okay, it's hard to change," he told her, understanding where she was coming from. A few days ago, she was probably sure that she loved Paul. A few days ago, she was probably sure of her world and the role she played in it. This whole thing, this thing they were doing, it was different and probably a little scary and he had to be there for her.

He didn't expect anything in return. For so long he'd felt something for Stephanie that he'd tried to suppress so that now, now when he had a chance with her, he would take what he could get and be there for her and that was enough for now. That didn't mean that she didn't surprise him every now and then, "God, look at me here complaining when your wife doesn't even know what's going on and you have to face all that by yourself."

He should have known she would be on top of things, "I'll be fine."

"You had to be so sure that things…I don't even know what I'm saying now," she told him, shaking her head. "If you need any help with Jessica and lawyers, I'm here for you."

"See, we're working already!" he told her.

Stephanie was about to respond when her phone buzzed in her pocket. She felt it against her thigh and she dug into her pocket to get it. "It's Shane, he's texting me. I hope that it's not something making fun of us, I think I'm tired of all the teasing."

"It's only going to get worse," he pointed out.

"Are you sure you don't want to be like Paul and tell everyone to mind their own business and leave us the hell alone or else they're fired?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm still going to pass," Chris said, "I'm really not the kind of guy who would use a woman or a last name like that. I like doing things that I earn, you get more satisfaction out of things that way." Stephanie smiled and looked down at her phone and frowned. "What's wrong?"

"My brother says that we have a problem, but he won't tell me what it is, but to call him," Stephanie said, dialing her brother's number. Chris leaned in so he could hear what was going on too and they waited for Shane to answer.

"Steph?"

"Shane, what's going on, what's the problem?"

"We have a problem with Paul," Shane said.

Stephanie groaned and rolled her eyes, "What is he trying to do now? I mean, I know he's angry with me and Chris and he's angrier about the divorce, but what has he gotten himself into now?"

"Stephanie…"

"Shane, just spit it out!"

"He's threatening to quit and go to TNA."


	15. Chapter 15

"This is bad, this is very bad."

"Steph, calm down," Chris said, standing up.

"I should go talk to him," she told Chris. "I should go and talk to him right now."

"I'm not letting you talk to him when he's this irate, it's not a smart idea. Can you wait a few days?"

"A few days!" she turned him and scoffed. "You want me to wait a few days to talk to him when he could just quit right now?"

"Even if he did quit, I'm sure he has a 90-day no-compete clause in his contract, right?" Chris said, then off of Stephanie's look, which looked like she had smelled something rancid. "Stephanie, he doesn't have that clause!"

"No, I was married to him!" Stephanie said. "I didn't think that I would need to have a no-compete clause for my husband in his contract. I figured that it went without saying that he wasn't going to the competition."

"Do you guys have a prenuptial agreement?"

"Of course," she waved him off. She wasn't an idiot, of course she'd had an agreement put up. She wasn't naïve enough to think that everything might work out forever, but yes, the no-compete thing had been an error on many people's parts. "I wasn't that stupid, that involves a lot more money…something that we'll be losing if he leaves. We can't wait a few days, Chris. He could quit today and then he'll be in TNA by next week."

"I'm not so sure."

"What do you mean you're not so sure? You're the one who convinced me that Paul was the scum of the Earth and if that's truly the case, then, yes, he will be in TNA and it will be all my fault that he went there."

"Don't tell me you're considering going back to him," Chris said, shaking his head.

Her lack of response actually disgusted him. It physically made him ill at the thought that this woman would be willing to put her job before anything and everything else. He cracked one of his knuckles, being satisfied by the cracking sound it made. Nothing was going right. He knew it wouldn't be this easy road, but nothing seemed to be going in their favor. All he wanted was a chance with Stephanie, but it seemed that the world insisted on pelting them with every obstacle it could muster.

"Unbelievable," he said. "Fine, I'm just going to go home to my wife then, thanks for the good time."

"Chris, stop, I don't want to fight with you," she said, grabbing onto his arm when he started to leave. "If you don't want me to talk to him alone, I'll talk with my family and we can come up with something."

"I want to be there," Chris insisted. "I want to be there with you."

"But you have to go home," Stephanie said, "you have things to do, things to start, like…leaving your wife, I guess. You need to go do that, get that started, tell her what's going on because Paul can find her number somehow and I suspect that it'll be somehow easier and more accurate coming from you than it will be coming from Paul."

"You're right," he said, "and you really can't wait a few days?"

"I don't think this can wait a few days," she told him, "but my family and I can deal with this."

"I think you need to call his bluff."

"What? His bluff? You think he's bluffing?"

"Absolutely," he told her, "listen, hear me out before you dismiss the idea of it, okay? I think that he's bluffing because while I'm sure he believes that he can carry TNA, he knows that TNA is hardly the place for him. They don't have the TV deal that we do and let's face it, they don't have the same kind of exposure into the mainstream media that the WWE does. This is everything to Paul. I know that he probably cared for you at some point, I don't doubt this, but you had the lure of power and I think that attracted him-"

"So you're saying that I was just a pawn and there's no way he could have loved me?" she asked, wondering if that's what he meant and ready to crucify him for it if he did.

"I don't think that at all, I think you're incredibly attractive and not just the physical aspects of you," Chris said. "What I do think is that Paul is trying to use your love of the business against you. I don't think he's going anywhere."

"But if he is?" Stephanie asked. "What then?"

"Then I say let him go, let him find out that whatever cache he thinks he has isn't as much as he thinks."

"He has drawing power, Chris, I think you're underestimating him," she shook her head.

"I don't think I am at all, you're building up new guys around here, aren't you?"

"But we still need veterans," she said, "I just don't want him going over there. It'll be all my fault and I couldn't live with that and that's just what he wants. He wants me to go back to him. I'm just so confused right now. I don't want to be with him because he's forcing me to, I don't want to be with a man who puts an ultimatum on a relationship like this."

"So I guess now would be a bad time to tell you that you have to choose between me and wrestling?" he told her.

"Shut up," she said.

"Look, call a meeting with your family and some of the other higher-ups. You guys can all discuss what course of action you're going to take. Look over his contract again, maybe there is something there that you can use to make him not quit. Maybe when all this calms down, he'll think differently?"

"I guess he could," she conceded. "Thanks for being so calm."

"I just think that he's trying to pull a fast one over you, that's all. It's something that I wouldn't put past him, hell, it's right there in our faces right now. Did your brother say anything else about the situation?"

"Just that he's pissed and he wants to quit immediately," Stephanie shrugged. "I guess he didn't want to elaborate or maybe there wasn't anything to elaborate on."

"Well, talk about it, let me know what's going on when I'm down in Florida."

"Are you sure you can handle everything in Florida?"

"Why wouldn't I be able to?" he asked.

She shrugged. She kind of wanted to be there though. She knew what that might look like to Jessica though. Here her husband comes to tell him he's separating and divorcing her and his new girlfriend-thing is there, flaunting it to her. But she just wanted to be there for moral support. She knew that it was going to be difficult if all this with Paul was any indication and she needed Chris's support so she figured that he might need her support as well.

"I know you can, I just worry that everything will be as volatile down there as it is up here and I don't want that for you," Stephanie said, "I want to be there for you."

"You need to take care of your stuff too, besides, I don't think you being with me is going to help my cause. I'm just lucky Jessica didn't see what Paul saw or we might be dodging two people right now."

She gave a sad smile. "Yeah, well, I better let you get packed so you can go?"

"Why don't you stay with me?" he said kindly, wanting to spend as much time as he could with her before he went back home. He'd need to tuck away some happy memories before he entered another storm.

"Okay," she said, sitting on his bed. "Do you think Jessica will protest the divorce?"

"Honestly, I'm not really sure," he tells her. "Things have been pretty strained for a while, we even separated for a couple months right after I came back, but then it was like, we kind of found our way back to each other, but things were never really the same. Maybe she wants one too and she's just been too scared to actually ask me about it."

"So hopefully you'll get off easy," she gave a hollow laugh, trying to make a joke and failing utterly. "I just hope it goes better than all of this mess. I never would have figured that this would happen, that we'd have to go through this."

"You know, I'm just throwing this out there, but you are absolutely free to walk away if you want to. I wouldn't even hold it against you if you did."

"No, I don't want to, I just want to move forward and we'll have to get through all this to get to that."

He took those words with him as he went to the airport and got on the plane back to Florida. It was a long flight so he had time to think about what he was going to say. He wanted to tell Jessica that while he would always love her, he didn't think it was in their best interest or in the kids' best interest to stay together. If he had such strong feelings for Stephanie, and he did, it wouldn't be fair to his marriage to continue living like they were. He just wanted things to go smoothly for the kids. They were the most important thing to think of.

He worried his lip as he thought about the different ways Jessica could react. He could see her throwing things at his head and him ducking, he could see her crying, but he could also see some quiet acceptance. If she felt anything like he'd been feeling then it might not even be a huge deal. It would be more like the simple end to a relationship that had run its course. He hoped for that reaction because it would make the divorce proceedings easier and he'd like to come out of this as Jessica's friend if nothing else.

Maybe he was being too idealistic, but in comparison to Paul's reaction, it _had_ to be better, right? He believed that Paul was overreacting to the highest degree so anything less than that was a win in his book. He tried to keep this attitude as he drove home, glad that he was actually driving and not being picked up by Jessica. It gave him more time to think of how he was going to go about this. He wasn't due home until tomorrow and he almost wished that he could've waited until tomorrow to do this.

He finally arrived home and he sat in the car for twenty minutes, just staring at his hands sitting on the steering wheel. He was blatantly stalling and once he realized he was blatantly stalling, he got out of the car slowly, leaving his bag behind in case she kicked him out immediately. He opened the door, turning the lock slowly and then gently opening the door, as if his mere presence would alert Jessica to the situation. He listened and all was quiet, no kids yelling or running around, which probably meant they were with Jessica's mom because Jessica's car was in the driveway.

He walked around and didn't see her and deduced that she must be upstairs so he slowly walked up the steps, prolonging the agony of the impending conversation. He didn't see her in any of the rooms so she must be in the bedroom. He shuffled down the hallway, then his hand poised itself on the doorknob. He'd just go in, tell her what was going on and hope for the best. This was just a conversation…just a conversation that was going to decide pretty much the rest of his life, no pressure, no pressure at all. He took a deep breath and walked inside…

To his wife with another man.


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: Thanks for reviews and I hope that you like the story. I kind of feel like this one is slowing down, not necessarily close to finishing, but maybe close to finishing, anyways, thanks for sticking with it and I hope you enjoy. :)

* * *

Well that certainly made it easier.

Chris backed out of the room, undetected because they were now being loud, and he walked downstairs, sitting in the living room, hunched over. He stayed silent for a few minutes before he started to laugh in earnest. He wasn't even sure why he was laughing as this situation wasn't exactly funny, but it was definitely ironic. Here he was, worried about how his wife was going to take the news of him leaving her for another woman and she was already moved on and how long had this been going on? He'd only kissed another woman for the first time last night, but unless his wife was bed-hopping like nobody's business, something had to lead up to this.

It was just so ridiculous now, thinking about the fear he'd had walking into the house. He'd been honestly terrified of what would become of him and Jessica, if it would be as bad as Stephanie and Paul and it wasn't, it was better? Worse? He couldn't figure out what it was. He knew that he should feel horrified and angry that his wife was upstairs cheating on him right now, but how could he care? He kissed another woman the night before? He was leaving Jessica for Stephanie? He couldn't be mad because then he'd just be a hypocrite.

He ran his hand over his face as his laughter subsided. The discussion would be easy now. He would tell Jessica he knew about her, he would tell her he was leaving for another woman and he hoped that would be a clean break. Jessica now had no right to be angry either and if she was, he could just point to the naked guy that had been on top of her not a few minutes before. He didn't know how long he sat there, but then he heard footsteps on the stairs and Jessica was escorting her whatever he was, lover, to the door. Chris watched quietly as Jessica kissed him briefly before letting him go.

"So he seems nice," Chris said and Jessica nearly yelled as she turned around. Her eyes were wide and then turned wider as she saw Chris sitting there.

"Chris…I…that was…"

"I'd love to see you try and explain your way out of this one," Chris said, folding his arms in amusement. Just because they were nearly on the same page didn't mean he couldn't have a little fun. After all, he hadn't slept with Stephanie yet so if they were judging by the levels of cheating, he wasn't as bad as his wife was.

"I just…I don't know…I'm…I'm sorry," she stuttered, pulling her robe tighter against her. He nodded his head slowly. "I wasn't expecting you home until tomorrow, you weren't supposed to be here."

"To catch your little liaison," he told her. He laughed, "You know, I was so worried when I came home, I'll tell you why in a second, but I was so worried and scared and then I walked into our house and I was upstairs, saw you, but you were too busy to see me or hear me over the screaming you were doing. I was so nervous that I didn't even hear the very blatant sounds you were making."

"You were worried?" she asked, not wanting to focus on the fact that her husband had just seen her having sex with another guy in their bed.

"I'm leaving you."

"Chris, I'm so sorry, I…" She just stopped explaining. Chris shook hi s head like he didn't even want to hear her continue and he didn't.

"It's okay," he said with a laugh, "it's okay."

"What? You're not…mad?" she was confused. She thought that if she ever got found out, Chris would want to kill the guy or go on some kind of rampage and destroy everything in their home and then kick her out and take the kids and never let her see them.

"I can't be," he said with a sigh. "I want to be, I want to yell at you and ask how long this has been going on because I'm pretty curious to how long I've been an oblivious idiot, but I can't do that."

"It hasn't been that long," she tried to defend herself. "It's just, with the two of us, things have been weird, even you have to admit that and I just…I'm sorry, I never meant for it to get that far and I know we've been trying and I'm sorry."

"Jess, just stop, let's preserve some of our dignity," he told her. "I'm in love with someone else, well, okay, maybe not in love with her, but there's the potential there. I've never had sex with her, so well, that was all you, but I want to be with her."

"You're with someone?"

"Well, we're not together yet, I guess, she's…it's Stephanie McMahon," Chris told her.

Jessica just stood there in confusion. The day had taken a turn for the weird here. She had been having an affair for about a month now. She wasn't proud of it, not by any means, in fact, the guilt sometimes eat her up so much that she hated herself. It was just different with Chris now though. He was gone so much and she just couldn't handle it and they'd been having problems for a long time.

Still, she'd never expected Chris to be falling for someone. It was almost…she hated to feel it, but it was almost a relief to her that she was at least a little off-the-hook. It was a horrible thing for her to think, but if they were both sinners, it didn't make her sins seem as bad. She walked further into the room and took a seat on one of the loungers that was close to Chris, but not close enough that they were really in each other's space.

"I should have known," Jessica said, thinking to Stephanie. She didn't hate the woman, never had, but she and Chris had worked so closely that it was always a little suspicious. She wondered briefly, and stupidly, if actors' wives thought the same thing with women they made movies with. "Not that I thought you two were…"

"We weren't, at least, not really," Chris ran his hand through his hair. "Last night, I kissed her for the very first time. Every time I've ever been around her, there's always been this weird energy. I've ignored it for the most part because I had this family and you and I didn't want to be _that_ guy. I never wanted to be that guy. Unfortunately, I don't know what happened last night, you're going to love this though. We started kissing and I accidentally pressed the button for the closed circuit television so everyone saw us making out in the production truck."

"Oh, Chris," Jessica didn't want to laugh, but a little snort came out anyways. "I shouldn't laugh, I was just caught having sex by my husband."

"So we both realize we can't be mad in this situation, huh?"

"I guess we can't," she shrugged. "We've both been…unfaithful in our own ways. I'm sorry you had to see that. I never meant…it's easy to say now that I never meant for you to see that. I don't know what to say or do right now. It's like, you should be mad at me."

"And you should be mad at me."

"And since we've both done this stuff, neither one of us can be mad."

"So we're stuck like this," Chris said, "kind of in limbo."

"Yeah, so what do we do now?" Jessica asked. "Is it supposed to just be this…thing where we just kind of go our own way?"

"Do you at least like the guy?"

"I do, I really do," she nodded. "I know I shouldn't say that to you, God, I shouldn't say that and mean it and you shouldn't be so nice. You like Stephanie I'm sure, I mean, you've known each other for so long so I guess you like her. This is so weird."

"You're telling me," he said. "The kids…"

"We'll work something out," Jessica said. "I mean, once you figure things out with Stephanie, Jack, that's the guy…um, well, he lives around here, I know that Stephanie doesn't, I just…I don't know what to say here and not feel odd about this whole thing."

"It's okay," he said, "I feel the same way. I was so nervous that you would hate me and…Stephanie's having a really difficult time with Paul and I thought you would react the same way and you're not and we can't be really mad at anyone here."

"Yeah," she said, pulling the robe tighter around her.

"Jess, would you hate me if I left like now? Stephanie was going to talk to Paul about things and I really wanted to be there," he told her, "I know the kids are expecting me tomorrow and I will be home tomorrow."

"Yeah, go, because I'm not sure I can take this awkwardness anymore," she told him.

He got up and he was going to hug her, but it didn't seem appropriate in the moment. He instead kind of patted her on the shoulder. In all honesty, he just wanted out of this house. It was suddenly strange being there with her and he wanted to be anywhere but there. She kind of gave him a look, but it turned more into a cringe and he grabbed his things without even looking back and headed straight back for the airport. He contemplated calling Stephanie, but he figured that he could surprise her. Besides, everything that had just happened, he felt like that was a conversation he needed to have with her in person.

She had told him she'd be staying with her parents and he knew the way to that house. Getting a flight wasn't hard, but the waiting was. He had a stopover in Raleigh and every minute he wasn't near her was something of torture for him. He just wanted to see her, talk to her, come up with some kind of game plan for Paul. He could deal with his own divorce later, but right now, Paul was the one who was being the asshole and that needed to be taken care of right away. He still didn't believe Paul would actually leave, but they had to make sure that he wouldn't.

Getting to Connecticut was a relief, but when you didn't have a car rental reservation, it could turn into a nightmare. He eventually got a car and started towards Vince's house. He was lucky he'd been there a number of times before because the more time he spent thinking about Stephanie, the more time he actually wanted to be around her. There was something about her presence that was just so calming for him. He wondered if that was how it would be in the future. If there were going to be days where he was upset or frustrated and then just seeing her and being around her would calm him down. He liked the thought of that. He liked the thought of just lying quietly with her somewhere.

He was thinking _way_ ahead of himself, but when it came to Stephanie, somehow he didn't care. He just wanted her all the more. He got to Vince's house and was barely parked when he jumped out of his car and started towards the door. He rang the doorbell a couple times, just enough to make sure it was heard, but not enough to be annoying. The door opened a few moments later and Stephanie was surprised to see Chris there.

"Chris, what are you doing here, I thought you were going to Florida to talk to Jessica. I mean, that _was_ the plan, right?"

"It was, but there's a really good story about that," Chris said, coming in and hugging her. Chris looked over her shoulder and saw her whole family there, standing and looking at him. He gave a small wave and then felt a little out of place since he'd pretty much just barged into their home. "Um, hey, everyone, I just…I couldn't really stay away."

"Come on in, Chris," Vince said, "we were just discussing what we're going to do about Paul."

"Are you sure you don't mind me here?"

"No, of course not, come on in," Vince said as he led Linda and Shane back to wherever they were congregating.

"What happened? Was it bad?" Stephanie asked. Chris smiled at her and hugged her tightly. Stephanie laughed like she was dealing with a crazy person and he set her down, pressing a brief kiss to her lips. "Okay, I'm guessing it wasn't bad?"

"She was cheating on me," Chris said. Stephanie looked taken aback. "I know, I was surprised too, but it really makes things less complicated and I needed to come see you. I have to go back to see my kids, but I just really wanted to be with you." She hugged him again.

"I'm really glad you're here. I needed you."


	17. Chapter 17

A/N: Thanks for reading/reviewing, enjoy the story. :)

* * *

Even though her family had readily invited him into their home, that didn't mean the awkwardness just stopped. Shane and Vince had had time to accustom themselves to the idea of Chris and Stephanie, but Linda had yet to see the couple for herself and her shrewd eyes didn't go unnoticed by Chris. He felt nearly naked under her gaze and hesitated to even touch Stephanie, but she'd grabbed his hand as they walked into the living room so he couldn't escape her gaze at the moment.

"Have you eaten?" Stephanie whispered to him. "We haven't yet. We were going to talk first and then go out to dinner."

"I haven't," he whispered back to her.

"Great, you can come with us then," she smiled softly at him and she looked tempted to kiss his cheek, but she refrained for the moment and Chris wondered if perhaps she was a little apprehensive to show any physical contact in front of her mother as well. "We want to figure out everything tonight and then talk with Paul tomorrow."

"It's a very grave situation we have on our hands," Vince said as they sat down.

"Where are my manners?" Linda said, seemingly breaking free from her scrutiny of Chris. "Did you want something to drink, Chris? We have pretty much everything in the house so all you have to do is say the word."

"I'm good, but thank you, Linda," Chris said politely, trying so hard to get in her good graces (he couldn't tell if he was already in them). He didn't know what Linda's feelings on the situation might be, but he felt very much like the new boyfriend trying to get his new girlfriend's parents to like him. For all he knew, Linda had loved having Paul as a son-in-law. The man had given her two grandchildren, _grandchildren_. "Hey, where are the girls?" Chris asked Stephanie quietly.

"They're upstairs playing," Stephanie threw him a smile for remembering her girls. "You can be formally introduced in a little bit.

"I'd like that," he said, then turned again to the rest of the family, who were staring at the two of them, "sorry, I just…I haven't seen her since this morning so…well, so, what's the situation with Paul?"

"Well, as you know, he's threatened to quit," Vince said.

"And leave for TNA," Shane added. "I think they're just scare tactics. We have him under a solid contract so it's not like he can just quit. He can wait until his contract expires, but that's a long time."

"How long is his contract?" Chris asked.

"Five years," Stephanie told him. "We could have signed him for longer, but I guess…what with our situation, he didn't feel the need to sign something like ten years. Plus, five years is just…I mean, he's not young so…he still has three years left on his contract."

"Well that doesn't seem so bad," Chris said, "I mean, in three years, you'd hope that the guy would get over what's happening, right? I mean, who can hold a grudge for that long?"

"He can," Stephanie scoffed. "You don't know how he is. Plus, I haven't gone over his contract in so long, it's not just a standard contract, he has provisions in it because he's my husband, there could be some out clause that I overlooked. Dad is having the lawyers go over the contract with a fine-tooth comb."

"I really think the guy is bluffing. I don't think that he'll go to TNA."

"But what makes you think that?" Shane asked.

"Because the guy thinks he's a god," Chris shrugged, "I know you've all been related to him, but I gotta believe that he acts differently around you guys than he does around the rest of the guys. You don't know how he is in the locker room. Why do you think that nobody was up-in-arms about Stephanie and I, they figured that oh, Paul is going to be out of the picture. You guys don't know how he is."

"That may be," Vince said, "but don't you think that makes him more dangerous to leave?"

"How do you mean?" Stephanie asked.

"I think I know what Dad means," Shane said, "I think that if Paul thinks he's some hot shit that means that he can go right over to TNA and make the company better. He thinks that he can single-handedly save it from itself and we can't have that."

"At the risk of offending anyone, competition _is_ good," Chris told them, "it bolsters quality. When WCW was in operation, they were beating you guys and with semi-good reason, they had the nWo storyline going and it was entertaining and intriguing, at least at first. This made you guys step up your game and you beat them into a pulp. Competition isn't a bad thing."

"He's right," Stephanie said, patting Chris on the knee, "but I think that you're right too in thinking that Paul will think he's the best at what he does and that he will be able to carry TNA on his back."

"I don't think that's true either," Chris said, "I think Paul exaggerates how many people would actually follow him over there."

"That I agree with," Shane said.

"Look at Kurt Angle. Arguably he was one of the most popular wrestlers here," Chris started, "but he's over there now and it's not like they're really doing any better. Nobody in this business save for _maybe_ Rocky and Austin could really hold up a company. Even if Cena went to TNA…I think you guys overvalue the guy a little."

"Not even in the family yet and he's trying to tell us what to do," Vince joked, but it still made Chris's ears burn.

"I'm not trying-"

"He's joking, Chris," Stephanie told him kindly. "Don't mind him. We know that Cena is polarizing, but kids love him and eventually those kids will grow up and make their kids watch wrestling and hey, if that means we have to push the guy, we have to push the guy."

"I got it," Chris said, still feeling embarrassed for just coming out and saying what he wanted to say. "I still think that you should call Paul on his bluff, even if he has the contract, it wouldn't hurt to tell him that if he wanted to go, he could. You don't think that wouldn't scare the hell out of him? You get more exposure in the WWE, having that stripped from Paul is probably the worst thing he can think of."

"I think we should go with Chris's idea," Shane said, "smoke him out of the hole so to speak. I think he's bluffing too. I don't think he'd risk what he has here. He and Stephanie also have the prenup so it's not like the guy is going to really get anything out of us so if he leaves, he'll have to take a huge pay-cut and I don't think it'd be worth it to him."

"I agree," Stephanie piped in. "I can talk to him tomorrow and-"

"And I want to be there," Chris added, "we can go tomorrow morning and then I can go home tomorrow afternoon so I can spend time with my kids."

"You can have Monday off," Vince said, "since you came all the way here, I don't want you to miss time out with them."

"Wow, thank you, Vince, I really appreciate that," Chris said and he was serious about that. He wouldn't say this was necessarily a perk from being with Stephanie, but he was grateful for it nonetheless.

"My daughter wants to be with you, the least we can do is start treating you like her boyfriend," Vince said, "we've already told the lawyers to start drawing up papers. Stephanie is going to file for divorce on Monday."

"Thank God," Linda muttered, which made everyone turn to her and she realized she'd said that out loud. "I'm sorry, but I never could like that man. The smartest thing you've ever done is let everyone see you and Chris making out."

Chris felt suddenly better about the whole thing. It was one thing to come in and feel like you were the odd man out, but it was another to come in as the guy who made out with your married daughter. The circumstances here were unique and strange. He'd essentially cheated with Stephanie and her family didn't have to welcome him, but apparently anything and anyone was better than Paul. So as long as he kept up the better than Paul, he felt satisfied that he wouldn't make a complete embarrassment of himself. And taking into consideration the fact that Paul was currently trying to threaten them with his quitting, he already had a leg up. Linda on his side could only be seen as a positive.

"Mom!" Stephanie said.

"Well, it at least forced you to confront what happened," Linda said, shrugging. "I just never liked the man, that's all and I can't say I'm sorry to see him leaving this family. I know you always saw him as not a bad guy, sweetheart, but the rest of us could see it."

"It's true," Shane said, "we saw it, but we didn't want to hurt your feelings."

"Wow, well, thanks," Stephanie said, biting her lip.

"So, um, now that this is over, maybe we can see your girls, Steph?" Chris said, wanting to get her away from her family right now. They might not be able to see it, but it was clear that Stephanie was upset about what her family said about Paul. It wasn't her fault the way he'd behaved and she loved the guy presumably so her eye to his faults had been blind.

"Yeah, we can get them ready for dinner," Stephanie said. "We'll be back."

"We'll just hang around here until you're ready," Vince said, "Shane and I have to make some phone calls anyways."

"I have some calls to make too," Linda said as Stephanie led Chris out of the room.

"You okay?" he asked as soon as they were in the hallway and out of earshot from the rest of her family. "I know that had to be hard to hear."

"No, I mean…yes, it wasn't like I…he wasn't horrible to me and I'm not saying he's not horrible because he is horrible, but if he was so horrible, why didn't anyone tell me, you know. My own family has been stewing about, waiting for me to break up with him and I'm just sitting there like an idiot while everyone hates him."

"They only did it because they loved you," Chris said, "they loved you enough to want you to be happy and if they saw you happy with Paul, they weren't going to say anything. Sometimes you have to keep your mouth shut and just go with the flow. What if they had said something, would you have honestly taken it into consideration?"

"Probably not," she admitted sheepishly.

"There, so that's why they didn't tell you. They know you, they would know how you felt and how you would react and they love you so they didn't want to see you reacting like that," Chris said, kissing her temple. "But you figured it out eventually and now they can say the truth. If Shane had ever dated anyone but Marissa, someone you didn't like, I'm sure you would have done the same thing for him."

"Stop being all wise," she told him, "I'm supposed to be the wise one in this relationship."

"Is it because you were the wise one when you were with Paul?" he teased as they went upstairs.

"I guess so," she said, "so you are ready to really meet my girls, right?"

"I've seen them a few times before, so it's not like they're complete strangers. Since Jess and I are kind of mutually breaking up, I don't think she'd have a problem with me bringing my kids up here, we could set something up for them to meet because I want them to meet each other. Aurora and my twins will probably get on great since they're the same age pretty much, by a week, right?"

"Yeah, I think it was a week," Stephanie said. "I'm sure they'll like you, they like everyone."

"My kids will adore you, they've seen us together onscreen so they know you at the very least."

"Same with my girls," she said as she pushed open the door. "You ready?"

"Absolutely," he said. She nodded.

"Girls, there's someone I want you to meet."


	18. Chapter 18

A/N: Thanks for reading and reviewing, hope you enjoy the chapter! :)

* * *

Chris didn't know what he'd expect when Stephanie let him in. He'd seen her children before at shows, but then he'd never really spoken to them and had only been really introduced once, in passing. He'd never paid attention to them and so when he thought about them, he wasn't sure what they were going to be like. They _were_ Paul's daughters so there was a deep, hidden part that thought they might be little hellions, insistent on pushing down the other little children they came into contact with, but he knew he was simply projecting his disdain for their father onto them.

They were sitting there, playing quietly together, exchanging doll clothes and generally looking happy. As the door opened, they both looked up and Chris got his first really good look at them. Aurora was all Stephanie, the brown hair, the slight smile that could be misinterpreted as a smirk, and those blue-gray eyes. Her sister seemed to look more like Paul, with blonde, curly hair, but still, those same blue-gray eyes of Stephanie. And thankfully, neither one of them had their father's nose.

"Hey, sweeties," Stephanie said as she came over and sat down with her girls. "There's someone I want you to meet and he's right here. His name is Chris Irvine."

"I know you," Aurora said, smiling up at him. "You wrestle, I met you before."

Chris came into the room a little bit more, closing the door behind him so they could have some privacy. "Yeah, you did, I wasn't sure you remembered me, but I'm glad that you did. I remember you too, you're Aurora and this is your sister, Murphy."

"That's right, do you wanna play?" Aurora held out a Barbie for Chris to play with and he sat next to her and took it from her. "I give you the prettiest one."

"Thank you," Chris said as he grabbed a tiny brush and started brushing out the doll's hair. Stephanie found it incredibly endearing, but he had two daughters Aurora's age so he had to know how to deal with them. Still, Paul didn't really know how to deal so well with their daughters. He said he just understood boys better than girls and that's why he got along so well with his nephew. She'd never questioned it, but seeing Chris with her daughters now, combing a Barbie's hair, she wondered if that was just an excuse made up by Paul. "I don't think she's as pretty as you and your sister and your mommy though."

Aurora beamed, "Thank you! That nice of you."

"It is nice," Stephanie said, "I thank you too for saying that."

"Me too!" Murphy said, but she didn't really know what she was saying thank you for, but if everyone else was saying it, she was going to say it too.

"Do you want a pretty dress for your Barbie?" Aurora asked.

"Sure," Chris said, "I bet you have really good taste in Barbie dresses, huh?"

"I think so," Aurora nodded and rooted through the pile of doll clothes for a dress and then handed it to Chris so he could dress his doll. "Do you like playing dollies?"

"I actually have two little girls who are your age," Chris told her, "so sometimes I play with dollies a lot."

"You have little girls too? Who are they?"

"They're names are Cheyenne and Sierra and they're a week older than you are so you are very close in age. I think you would like them. Maybe sometime they can come with me and meet up with you. You guys would have fun playing together. I also have a son named Ash, but he's a couple years older than you are."

"Oh," Aurora said, "I wanna play with them, I like friends."

"I like friends too, we already have a lot in common."

"Hi," Murphy said, having not really spoken yet, but she liked Chris too. She reached for the comb. "I use, pease."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Murphy, here you go," he told her, giving her the comb.

"Tanks," she told him as she took it from him and started combing her doll's hair with it. Chris looked up at Stephanie, who gave him an encouraging look. Her daughters were young enough to not turn anyone away who wanted to play with them and they were generally open to meeting new people, neither one of them being particularly shy.

"Are your daughters nice?" Aurora asked. She liked Chris, he seemed nice and he liked to play dolls, which was a huge plus. Her daddy only played dolls sometimes and he never picked the right clothes.

"They're very nice and they have a lot of toys they could bring."

"You guys," Stephanie said, figuring now was as good a time as any to bring up the fact that Chris would be around a lot more. "Do you think you would mind if Chris hangs out with us a lot from now on?"

"I don't care," Aurora said as she turned to Chris, "I like you."

"Thanks," Chris said.

"I do too," Murphy said, giving Chris a smile of her own.

"Why is he gonna be 'round though, Mommy?" Aurora asked as she looked at her mommy. "Is Chris your bestest friend?"

"Well, something like that," Stephanie said, "girls, I know this is going to be a little difficult for you to understand, but I don't think Daddy and I are going to live together anymore. There's some things that Daddy and I are cooperating about and sometimes it's better for mommies and daddies to be apart rather than be together. It doesn't mean that we don't love you both or anything, just that Daddy and I are better off if we're not together."

"Where will Daddy go?" Aurora asked.

"Well, Daddy will probably find a place of his own, very close by I hope so you can see him all the time if you want to, but it's just better for Daddy and I to be apart for now."

"Is Chris gonna live with you?" Aurora asked.

"Well, he might…sometime down the road, if that's okay with you guys? I wouldn't want to do anything that would upset you guys because you're the two most important people in the world to me and I want you to be happy before everyone else."

"I don't really care," Aurora said and Stephanie laughed, leaning over to kiss her head.

"Thank you, sweetie, that makes it a lot easier for me," Stephanie told her. "I really, really like Chris and I like being with him and I might…want him to be my boyfriend, if he would accept being my boyfriend that is."

"Ooh, boyfriend?" Aurora said, "that means you really, really like each other, like Ken…he likes Barbie and he's her boyfriend."

"That's right, kind of like…Ken," Chris said, chuckling as he responded to the little girl.

"Do you like my Mommy?"

"I like Mommy!" Murphy announced, climbing over to Stephanie and getting on her lap so she could cuddle with her mother. She loved her very much and she was just happy to be around her and she didn't really understand what was going on, but if it was about love, she very much loved her mother.

"I really do," Chris said, "I think your mommy is the prettiest, smartest, funniest, wonderful lady I've ever met in my entire life and I would very much like to spend most of my time with her and with you guys too. I think we could all be good friends."

"And your kids," Aurora reminded him.

"Yes, and my kids, thanks for reminding me," Chris told her, reaching out and ruffling her hair a little. She gave a funny grin to that and then giggled. "I just want you to understand that I'm not trying to take your mom or trying to be your new daddy or anything, but I would love it if we could all be friends."

"I like that," Aurora said, "plus I already have one daddy, but everyone says that the more is better so two daddies is even better, so if you wanna be my daddy, I think that's okay."

Stephanie laughed, "Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Miss Aurora. We'll just see how it goes. Tonight Chris is going to come to dinner with us and then he's going to spend the night and-"

"Mommy, can we have a sleepover?" Aurora asked like this was extremely serious business.

"A sleepover?"

"Uh huh, we watch movies and we eat candy, lots and lots of candy, can we, can we, can we…and we stay up lates, lots of lates," Aurora clapped her hands together. They were always having sleepovers on the Disney shows that she watched and she thought they looked like so much fun and she wanted to have a sleepover too!

"Well, I think we can watch movies and everything," Stephanie nodded. "That could actually be a lot of fun. What do you say, Chris? Maybe we could watch some movies after we come home for dinner, if you don't mind of course?"

"I would love to," Chris nodded eagerly. He desperately wanted Stephanie's kids to like him because he was sure if they liked him that being with Stephanie would be a lot easier. Plus, they were sweet, little girls and he honestly thought they would get along with his own kids. He couldn't wait for them all to meet each other.

"Are you staying forever, Chris?" Aurora asked.

"I can actually only stay until tomorrow," he told them, "then I have to fly home so that I can see my kids and hang out with them. I wouldn't want them to miss me that much."

"Oh okay," Aurora nodded, "they should come next time too and they can sleep over…Mommy, is Daddy going to hang out with us tomorrow like Chris is with his kids?"

"We'll see, sweetie," Stephanie said, thinking about the talk they were going to have with her husband the next day and how difficult it was going to be. She still didn't know what Paul was going to do when they tried to call his bluff. She hoped the lawyers would get back to her soon to see if they had found any loopholes in the contract. Everything was hinging on the idea that Paul could not leave. "I think he'll want to see you, but we're going to talk to Daddy tomorrow and he might be angry so we might hold off on it."

"Oh, well, I guess that we can see him later," Aurora frowned, but then took it in stride.

"I'll try to get him to see you," Stephanie said, "but we should probably get ready for dinner, are you hungry?"

"Yes!" Murphy said, rubbing her tummy. "I hungry!"

"Okay, well, let's go to dinner then."

"Chris, you help me with my jacket!" Aurora jumped up and ran towards the closet where her coat was hanging. "Chris, you cans tie shoes? I no do it yet."

"Sure, I'll help," Chris said, helping her get her jacket on and then putting her shoes on and tying them for her. "There you go, you're all set."

"I'm set!" Aurora said, running out of the room. Stephanie came up to Chris and smiled at him, kissing his cheek.

"They like you," Stephanie said. She was so glad her girls liked Chris. She was worried they would want their father and they wouldn't accept Chris, but her daughters had always been warm and open, more like her than their father. She didn't want to keep deriding Paul, but the more time she spent with Chris, the more she realized how different Paul was from what she'd always considered the normal husband. He was never as willing to do things for her or even for the girls and it was really starting to rub her the wrong way.

"I'm glad, I was really worried. I don't think they get the concept of divorce though, it didn't seem to phase them."

"They see so little of Paul to begin with, it probably won't be that much of a change," Stephanie said with a slight tone of bitterness to her voice. "I guess it will still be a bit of a transition for them, but I'm going to make it okay for them."

"I know you will," Chris said, grabbing her hand and giving it an encouraging squeeze. "My kids will love you too."

"I hope so," she said, "I'd love to meet them soon."

"Maybe next week, when things settle down a little, I can bring them to a show or something since they're not in school right now. How does that sound?"

"I'd really like that," Stephanie said. "I wish everything in our lives could be this easy."

"Paul will be easy, I'm telling you, he's bluffing."

"Mommy, Chris, come on!" Aurora peeked her head into the room. "We go now!"

"Okay," Stephanie said, "we'll talk later?"

"Yeah, we'll talk later."


	19. Chapter 19

A/N: Thanks for the reviews, all, hope you enjoy the chapter! :D

* * *

"I want to sit next to you, Chris!"

Chris looked over at Stephanie, who raised her eyebrows encouragingly. Chris was actually very pleased that he'd seemed to make an impression on Stephanie's daughters. He wanted everything to go smoothly for them especially. He knew there were big decisions on the horizon, but he wanted the transition to be easiest for the children. They were the ones who would be most affected by the change in their lives and minimizing any damage was priority number one.

"I would really like that," Chris told the little girl, who promptly reached up and grabbed Chris's hand. She reminded her of his Cheyenne, and he once again thought about how his daughters would probably get along very well with Stephanie's daughters. He honestly couldn't wait for them to meet.

"Good," Aurora said, pulling Chris along as they were shown to their table. Chris lifted Aurora easily into her booster seat and she grinned up at Chris, "Thanks!"

"You're very welcome," Chris told her happily, sitting down next to her and she reached out to grab his hand again.

"She likes to hold hands," Stephanie explained as she put Murphy into her own seat. Chris just shrugged because he didn't care. The important thing was this little girl not looking at him like he was the scum of the earth.

"I do likes it," Aurora said. "It's fun."

"I think it's fun too," Chris said, then lifted up the kid's menu in front of her. "Wow, you sure do have a lot of options here, I don't know what you're going to choose, did you want me to read you what they have?"

"Yeah, please!" Aurora responded to him, her eyes lighting up as Chris started to read the menu to her in different voices, making her giggle every time he changed his voice to something different and even more ridiculous than the last.

Stephanie was once again struck by how Chris was able to interact with her daughters. He was so at ease with children, and it was in such a way that went beyond the fact that he had children of his own, but more that he just liked kids in general. He had this way about him that put other people at ease. He was so warm and funny, and this was a trait that drew her to him in the first place.

She wondered if she would have ever been able to truly resist Chris's charms. It was a slow process falling for him. It hadn't come suddenly, like a strike of lightning that made her realize Chris was this man she wanted to be with, but it was just this slow build. It somehow made it feel more real. If she had never had any thoughts about Chris before they started making out, and that had happened on a complete whim with no back-story, she might question her own feelings, but these had been lingering for so long.

Maybe a part of her had to fall for Chris. Maybe it had just been a long time coming, all of these feelings. Stephanie looked over her menu and caught her mother's eye. Linda had also been watching Chris interact with Aurora, and as Stephanie met Linda's eyes, she could see a very knowing look on them. She knew what her mother was silently telling her. She was telling her Chris was so much more than Paul had ever been. She felt somewhat ashamed she'd been so blind for so long about Paul's faults. It was like everyone had just let her go on believing he was a good guy while she walked around in her little, oblivious bubble.

It hurt to think nobody thought she could handle hearing their opinions on her husband. She knew she could be acerbic, but she would have at least listened to what other people thought, even if she didn't agree. It was the fact that nobody thought she could handle their opinions that really hurt.

Chris looked down from Aurora's menu when she'd decided on the spaghetti and meatballs, glancing over at Stephanie when he did. She had a sour look on her face and Chris tapped her foot under the table to get her attention silently. She looked up at him and he gave her a soft, wonderful smile, which she tried to return, but it looked strained and uncomfortable.

"What's wrong?" he mouthed to her.

"Nothing, later," Stephanie mouthed back and he nodded, not wanting to press the issue with her family right there.

Chris actually felt very at home during the dinner with her family. They kept him engaged in conversation and were extremely welcoming to him. He knew his family would feel the same way about Stephanie so that made him feel good. His family never minded Jessica, but Stephanie was in a whole other stratosphere from Jessica and he knew everyone would just love her.

When they got back to Vince and Linda's house, Stephanie took the girls upstairs to get in their pajamas. Chris went and put some comfortable sweats on and then asked Linda where he could get some blankets and if there was somewhere he could set up camp for their sleepover. Linda, who found the whole thing incredibly sweet, led him into a large home theater area and she got him some blankets that she'd gotten from some linen closet. He laid them all out and situated some of the pillows on the ground for them to lie on.

"Chris?" Stephanie asked from the hallway.

He stuck his head out into the hallway, "Hey, your mom set us up in here."

The girls ran into the room and ooh'ed and aww'ed over the set-up, flopping down onto a couple pillows as they giggled. Stephanie hugged Chris and then looked over at her girls, "Thank you for doing this."

"It's not a problem, it's fun," he told her, "sometimes I'll build a fort with the kids and we'll just have picnics in there. It's a great rainy day activity."

"See, this is what I'm talking about, you do things with your kids and for your kids, just to have fun with them. You don't see them as an obligation, something you _have_ to take care of because they're yours."

"Come on, let's get the movie on for the girls and we can talk," he told her, grabbing her hand. "Hey, girls, I see that your grandparents have a bunch of movies you guys like in here, what do you say we pick something you guys want to watch?"

"Okay," Murphy said, running over towards the wall of DVD's that was in the corner. Aurora made sure to go grab Chris's hand again to drag him over and then went back and grabbed Stephanie's hand to bring her over too.

"What we watching?" Aurora said, tapping her chin as she looked at things. Chris pulled a few DVD's out to show them and they balked at the selections so they pulled a few more out. After a few minutes, they settled on _The Little Mermaid_ and Chris put the DVD into the player before helping the girls get settled with some blankets and pillows on the ground in front of the large TV. Chris then settled into the couch with Stephanie cuddled into his side so they could talk quietly as the girls watched the movie.

"Okay, so what's going on?" Chris asked. "I saw you at dinner and you just looked really bummed out so talk to me."

"It's just when you were reading the menu with Aurora…"

"Should I not have done that?" Chris asked. "I mean, I don't really want to overstep my boundaries or anything. I just wanted to put her at ease."

"No, it wasn't that, I _loved_ that, it was sweet and cute and she was so responsive to it. It's just, my mom was watching you and she looked at me and she just gave me this look like, '_This_ is how a father is supposed to act,' and it just got to me is all."

"Why would it get to you?" he asked, engaging her in conversation. He wanted to have an open relationship with Stephanie, one where they could talk and speak freely without fear of reproach.

"Because I feel like everyone has just been biting their tongue around me, letting me believe that everything was hunky-dory while it wasn't," Stephanie bit her lip and looked at the screen where Ariel was trying to comb her hair with a fork. That was the perfect metaphor for herself right now. Sometimes she felt like she was trying to comb her hair with a fork. She was left to think her own thing without anyone correcting her.

"How do you mean?"

"You've disliked Paul for a long time, right?"

"I admit to that, yes…"

"Well, it appears as if everyone hated him or couldn't stand to be around him, and it's like, why didn't anyone bother to tell me? I feel horrible because it's like I let this go on for too long and everyone was probably making fun of me."

"Nobody was making fun of you," Chris told her, bringing his hand up to cup her cheek. "God, Steph, nobody ever thought bad of you, at least not anyone I was around. We might not have understood your decisions, but we always figured there was just something we weren't seeing with Paul."

"But there isn't, it was what _I_ wasn't seeing, and I feel like such an idiot over this," Stephanie looked down as frustrated tears came to her eyes. "I see everything so much differently now and it's frustrating that I let myself go on believing I was happy. Why did I do that?"

"Because you _were_ happy, or I'm assuming you were," he told her, leaning down so he could peek at her face. "There's nothing wrong with that either, you know."

"I thought I was happy, but I was stupid. In the few days we've been together, you've shown me more compassion, more understanding…more everything than Paul has shown me in a really long time. Then the way you are with the girls…I can't believe I settled for what Paul had to offer. He's not a bad father, he's just not a great one then you come along and you're Mr. Wonderful Dad."

"Steph, it's not a competition," Chris said, "we all have our strengths."

"He's a jerk," Stephanie said, "and everyone let me be married to a jerk for years. The girls love him, but God, he never does the things you do. He hardly plays dolls or does funny voices…"

"Steph, look at me," Chris told her and she reluctantly looked up at him. "You didn't make bad choices in your life. You felt what you felt and there's nothing wrong with that. There's never anything wrong with feeling. Your feelings change, that's okay too, it happened with me and Jessica. That's all that's happened. To you, Paul wasn't a jerk and that's how you felt and how you saw things. What anyone else thought didn't matter because it's what _you_ think."

"But he wasn't very good at anything."

"Your perception has changed," Chris told her, "and that's fine. Maybe this will spur him to be a better person and father."

"Chris," she narrowed her eyes at him, "the guy is threatening to quit and go to another company, if anything, he's proving everyone right."

"He's angry and he's bitter and I don't really blame him in some ways because he's losing you and if I were in his place—"

"You wouldn't act like the world's biggest asshole," Stephanie supplied for him, running a hand through her hair. She hated that Paul was doing this to her and to her family. She had loved him, had seen the best in him, but he was simply proving that the worst in him was far beyond her scope.

"I don't know, I might," he said, trying to lighten the mood. "I don't think anyone is trying to hurt your feelings by telling you they didn't like Paul. I think they're trying to show their support for you. You shouldn't take it personally, Paul should because nobody likes him, but not you."

"I'm sorry for laying this all on you," she told him. "You don't deserve to have me crying all over your shoulder."

"I don't see tears," Chris ran his fingers down her cheek. "You are beautiful, Steph, every part of you. I never mind hearing what you have to say, okay, so never hold back. If this thing is going to work with us, we can't have this anger building inside of you. Tomorrow morning, we'll talk with your parents about things, that'll help."

"How are you so good at this?"

"What?"

"Just slipping into this role, just fitting in with us?" Chris gave her a lopsided grin.

"Because you let me in."


	20. Chapter 20

A/N: Thanks for all the reviews for this story, not sure where it's going, but glad you're along for the ride, enjoy! :)

* * *

Stephanie groaned as she tried to move. The problem was she had no room to move. She opened her eyes, trying to remember where she was and why she couldn't move only to meet a face full of couch. She realized she was squished onto the couch at her parent's house and Chris was right behind her. She wanted to laugh because there really was no space for the both of them, but here they were. She tried to turn around to look at Chris without waking him, but the task seemed impossible with the lack of space.

What she didn't realize, him being behind her as he was, that he was already half hanging off the couch, so when she moved, she was inadvertently pushing Chris right off the couch. He landed with a grunt on the ground beside the couch. He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling for a moment. "What the hell?"

Stephanie peeked her head over the side of the couch and gave him a soft, apologetic smile, her hair falling around her face, "Sorry."

"What did you push me off for?" he asked, his voice still groggy with sleep. He groaned as he sat up, pressing his hands into the soft carpet to be able to sit up and become eye level with her.

"I didn't realize you were so far off the couch," she told him. "I just wanted to turn over and see you."

"Yes, well you saw me alright," he laughed, sleep lacing his every word. He cracked his neck and sat there, just staring at her. "We fell asleep on the couch?"

"Yeah, I guess so," Stephanie said, glancing over at the blanket covered area in front of them. Murphy and Aurora were fast asleep in their pink sleeping bags, their faces reposed in slumber. There were two unused sleeping bags next to them. "We were watching TV after the girls fell asleep and I guess we just kind of fell over."

"Well, yesterday was pretty tiring," he ran a hand through his hair, trying to neaten it up. Stephanie replaced his hand and moved his hair around so it didn't look quite so much like he'd electrocuted himself.

"I have a feeling today isn't going to be much better," she said, lying down on the couch so they were really eye-to-eye. Chris shifted a little so he could stare at her. "I have a feeling today is going to be worse actually."

"You don't know," Chris said. "We can't really know what's going to happen when we confront him."

"I've been thinking," Stephanie told him, "I think I should talk to him alone."

"What? No way, I'm not going to let you do that," Chris said, "not with how angry he was that night, not going to happen."

"He's not dangerous," Stephanie argued. Paul was a lot of things, but he wasn't abusive. She felt safe enough to see him without incident. Sure, he might yell at her, but words weren't something that hurt her, not anymore. She'd matured from that girl who took fan signs into consideration. Wrestling taught you to have a thick skin, and she would take that thick skin into any conversation with Paul.

"Yeah, but he's volatile nonetheless."

"I know this," Stephanie said, "but how is it going to look when I come in with this whole arsenal, especially you. You know I want to be with you, but you being there is going to be something of a blow to him, and if he's really serious about leaving, having you there is only going to make it worse."

"Stephanie," Chris said, but he already felt defeated. Stephanie was right, his presence would only spell trouble for all of them. He still thought Paul was bluffing, but if he wasn't, then Chris's presence would not be welcome at all. "Okay, I won't go, but could you at least please take someone with you, someone who can remain rational if you guys start fighting."

"Okay, that I'll agree to," she said, "I can take Shane. He's absolutely rational. My dad would be too cantankerous, and my mom is too nice, Shane is a good compromise. Look at us, we're already compromising and everything!"

Chris laughed and leaned forward to press a chaste kiss on her lips, hyperaware of the fact they hadn't brushed their teeth this morning…or last night for that matter. "I knew we'd be good together."

"Oh yes, these two days are going to be absolutely indicative of how it's always going to be," she joked. "Are you going to stay here?"

"I don't think so," Chris said, "I think what I'm going to do is go home, and then maybe I can bring the girls and Ash up here, and we could maybe introduce all the kids together, and get them really acquainted since this is happening."

"I like that idea, I'd love to formally meet them," Stephanie nodded.

"I'd love for you to meet them," Chris said, "are you sure you're going to be okay with Paul today?"

"Absolutely."

Shane pressed his hand to the small of Stephanie's back. They'd just arrived at Stephanie and Paul's house, and it loomed large in front of them. Without the girls there, it seemed to lack a kind of life and vibrancy it did just days before. Now it was dark and ominous, but waiting for their arrival. She was sure Paul was there because he really had nowhere else to be. He had a home gym, he had plenty of food, there was no reason for him to be anywhere else, and she could imagine he was staking out his territory.

"You ready for this?" Shane asked her.

"I have to be, don't I?"

"You know, we don't _need_ him on the show," Shane argued with a shrug. "We've lost bigger names than him, and we've gotten by then. If he does leave, if he does choose to play the smaller man, then we can get by without him."

"I know, but I'd rather that not happen," Stephanie told him. "I'd rather none of this happen, but you know, he's right, I am a cheater. I did cheat on him, and no matter how anything pans out, that remains the fact."

"Yes, I know," Shane said, "and I wish I could pretty that up for you, but you know I can't. I really wish I could though. It makes me wish he was cheating on you with like fifteen different women so you could have some leverage."

Stephanie stifled her giggle, "I don't think that's true. He's not a good guy, but he was my guy, and I did betray him. His anger is his right, and I understand that he's going to be angry, and with good reason. I'm leaving an entire marriage just to _try_ something out with another guy. If the shoe were on the other foot, I'd be raging too."

"I'm proud of you, just so you know," Shane kissed her forehead as they made it to the door. Stephanie grabbed her key and unlocked the door. The air felt stifling inside, thick and oppressive. She put her key back in her purse and walked a few steps into the cavernous foyer, looking around trying to detect any sound. "Paul!"

"So you're just going to call out for him?" Shane asked.

"What else can I do?" Stephanie asked. "Come on, it's almost two, he's probably in the gym."

Shane followed Stephanie down the hallway and around and around until they finally arrived at the gym door. She pushed it open and she was right, Paul was here. She could hear him grunting under pressure, which meant he was weightlifting. She walked further inside, Shane following closely behind her as she went over to the weightlifting set.

"Paul, we're here to talk," Stephanie said, making Paul glance over at her, but not ending his reps.

"Go away," he told her, his voice strained under the weight he was lifting and probably from the stress of the situation.

"I'm not going away until he we talk about what you told my brother the other day," Stephanie said, "you can't drop a bombshell like that and not expect me to come over and talk to you. You know that's not how I work."

"I already made my decision, my mind is made up," Paul said, "you don't need me, hell, babe, I don't need _you_ or your damn company. Do you know how many companies would want me? I mean, look at who I am."

"I know that," Stephanie said, 'but I am asking you to not go."

"Too late," Paul said, "I don't really give a damn what you think anymore. I'm about to give you as much consideration as you gave me."

"I was wrong doing what I did," Stephanie told him, "I know I was wrong, what I did…I wish it hadn't ended up like that. But I wasn't happy, and you're not happy—"

"Don't tell me what I was!" Paul snapped at her, slamming the bar into its holder as he sat up. "Don't sit there and act like you aren't the one who was betrayed in this entire situation. Or do I have to go to production and get the videotape of you making out with another guy."

"I deserve that," Stephanie said, "I deserve all of your anger, but your anger should be concentrated on me, Paul, not on my family, not on the company, but me, just me. I deserve that anger, and I accept that you're angry, and you should be. I did something wrong, and I'm sorry for that, I really am, but I can't change it."

"Of course not, because suddenly you're in love with Irvine," Paul scoffed, "yeah, just like that, in love with the guy."

"I'm not in love with him," Stephanie shook her head, "I just recognize that I've…that something is there between us. I can't deny it any longer. And if I'm attracted to another guy, so attracted to him, it's not fair to you or to me to hide that. It's better that it happens this way, but don't punish the company, the fans, everyone who works with you."

"Forget it," Paul said, "save your fake words for someone who cares. I know how this is going to play out, thank you very much. I'm not going to make the divorce hard because I don't care about you. I just want fair time with the girls."

"Thank you."

"I'm not doing it for you," Paul explained. "I'm doing it for the girls. I don't want them to be affected by this. You, you I couldn't care less about, if it were just us, you better believe I'd make this hard for you, but not for them."

"I know you love them, Paul," Stephanie said, and he did, even if he wasn't the greatest dad, even if he couldn't interact with his daughter's in a natural, father-like way, he did love them, and they were lucky for that.

"I do," Paul said, "so get the hell out of my house because I don't want to see you again. I gave you my notice, so you can kindly fuck off."

"Paul, please, don't be like this. Why are you punishing the company for my indiscretions?" Stephanie asked. On the one hand, he was being so reasonable when it pertained to the girls, and on the other, he was being completely unreasonable.

"Paul, man, there's no reason you have to leave," Shane said, "but if you want to, then you can go right ahead, right, Stephanie?"

Stephanie had completely forgotten about the plan to smoke him out. She slapped herself mentally for it. "Well, if there's no way to convince him, then, yes, I guess, fine, there's nothing I can do."

"There isn't," Paul cleared his throat.

"Then see you later," Shane said, grabbing Stephanie's hand. "We can't keep you, and if it's such a problem working for us, I mean, you said there were a ton of companies who would love to have you. If you come into the office next Wednesday, we can get that paperwork ready for your termination of contract."

"Okay…" Paul was now on the ropes.

"I'm sorry it had to work out this way," Stephanie said, trying to keep in her smile. They'd completely turned the tables on him, and hopefully this would change his mind. Shane just shrugged carelessly and they turned to leave.

Now it was all in Paul's hands.


	21. Chapter 21

A/N: Thanks for all the reviews and everything, glad you're enjoying the story! Hope you enjoy this chapter! :)

* * *

"How did it go?"

Stephanie was barely in the door when Chris came up to her asking her about how her meeting with Paul went. She laughed a little at his eagerness. "I thought you were going back to Florida."

"I have a flight later, but I wanted to stay so I could hear how things went with you, so…is everything okay, is he still threatening to go to TNA?" Chris asked, grabbing her hand and leading her into her parent's living room. She let him lead her and they sat down on the couch. She looked around, briefly wondering where her daughters were. Shane had dropped her off, telling her wanted to go to Titan to take another look at Paul's contract.

"Where are the girls?"

"Your mom has the upstairs, I think they're making you pictures or something," Chris said, "I was a little too nervous for you to actually pay attention."

She laughed and squeezed his hand, "You're cute."

"Well, I try to be at least," Chris told her, "it's really more of a perfected science I've been developing since I discovered girls were a pretty good thing to be into."

Stephanie ducked her head and took a deep breath, "He still threatened to leave, but Shane and I called his bluff, and he was rattled, that was for sure. I think you were right in that he's just trying to act like he's bigger than all of this, but really wouldn't have anywhere to go. I mean, he could go to TNA I guess, but I don't think that would be his first option or his second, or even his third."

Chris nodded, "I'm glad he seemed rattled, that means he's absolutely bluffing."

"I think he might. I think if we just continue to say we don't care where he goes, he won't leave."

She hoped that was the case at least. She'd never really given thought to what would happen if she and Paul ever got divorced. When she'd married him, she'd intended it to be forever, she'd anticipated it being forever so she'd never given though to the fact they worked together. She bit her lip a little bit and looked at Chris in consternation. What if the same thing happened with her and Chris? Granted, their relationship was barely off the ground, but if they crashed and burned.

"Chris, what happens if we don't work out?" Stephanie blurted out, catching Chris by surprise. He furrowed his brow and tried to figure out where that came from.

"Are you planning on breaking up with me when we're not even officially together?" he asked jokingly.

"I'm kind of serious here," she told him, trying not to sound bitchy, but she had to wonder what would happen with the two of them if they weren't going to work out. Now those doubts were starting to creep into her mind again. She knew it was completely over with Paul, but what if she ended up alone at the end of this, completely alone, having thrown everything away for what could really just end up being a fling. "What would happen if we broke up?"

"Well, I wouldn't threaten you for one," he told her, "I like to think we're both mature adults and we wouldn't act like children if things didn't turn out. Yeah, working with you would be awkward for a while, but it wouldn't be anything we couldn't work past. I mean, I have to see Jessica and I know it'll be awkward for a while, but we'll work past it."

"Sorry I'm acting like we're already going to break up, I just realize that I'm going to deal with Paul in a completely different way now. Part of me wishes he _would _go to TNA just so I wouldn't have to face him, but that's a really silly thing to think, isn't it?" she pursed her lips.

"A little, but I think you're justified in a lot of ways," he told her, "so what else happened, anything of note, anything that would require me to use my fists?"

"No, he actually said he wouldn't contest the divorce or make it difficult on me, but only because of the girls. He said he didn't want them to go through anything so he's going to make thing easy on me."

"Really?" Chris asked incredulously. That was the last thing he expected from Paul. Maybe there was some humanity left in him after all.

"He loves the girls, he may not be great with them, he may not even relate to them, but he does love them. I'm just thankful he won't make that part hard. But the business stuff, that's all me, and he's out to make that difficult for me."

"But we can hold steadfast on that."

"Yes, we can," Stephanie nodded. "So you're going home, what's your plan when you get there?"

"Well, I'm going to talk to Jessica about bringing the kids up here," he told her. "If that's okay with you, I'd like for them all to meet as soon as possible. I think that it'll make it a little easier for the change to happen if we get the ball rolling immediately."

"I agree," Stephanie nodded. "I definitely agree."

Jessica was a lot more willing than Chris would have suspected. It might have something to do with Chris catching her in the act of having an affair, but it was like she didn't want to say no to anything Chris was saying. In this instance, he liked it just fine. With his kids out of school, it was simply a matter of getting them plane tickets, and then explaining to them that things were going to be different now. Oh yeah, he was going to have to explain what was going to happen now.

"Hey, you guys," Chris walked into the backyard where his kids were running around playing. "Can you come inside for a second, I really wanted to talk to you, and so does Mommy."

"Coming!" Ash spoke for the three of them, and he led the charge into the kitchen, all three of them spilling into the room as Chris ushered them towards the couch. Chris sat down and was bombarded by the twins, each of them jockeying for space on his lap. He gathered them up in his arms, peppering their faces with random kisses that made them giggle. Ash gave him a crooked smile and Chris winked at him. Jessica walked into the room and took a seat next to Ash, loosely wrapping her arm around his small shoulders.

"Your dad and I have something to tell you," Jessica started as soon as the girls calmed down. She looked up to Chris for strength and he gave her a look that said while they were not going to be together, they were still going to be parents together.

"What is it?" Ash asked, peering up at his mother.

"Well, your dad and I…you see, sometimes when a mommy and a daddy go through things, sometimes there's just…well, there's a lot of stuff that sometimes happens, and…a little help, Chris."

"Sometimes Mommies and Daddies decide they can't be married anymore," Chris told them slowly, "and there are reasons for it, none of which, _none_ of which have anything to do with you guys, but your mom and I have decided that it's probably best if we get a divorce."

"What divorce?" Cheyenne asked him.

"Well, it's something where Mommy and I won't be married, and we won't live together anymore, but we're both going to still be here for you guys," Chris told them. "It doesn't mean that I love you guys any less or that Mommy loves you guys any less. It just means that the way we're going to see each other and be with each other is going to be a little different now."

"But why?" Ash asked.

"Well," Jessica said, "your dad and I have just been growing apart, and it's better for us and in the end, for you guys, if we just take the time to be away from each other now. We both still love you guys to the moon and back, we just have to do this for ourselves."

"Where are we going to go? Will we have to move?" Ash asked.

"Daddy is going to move out," Jessica looked to Chris for confirmation and he nodded. "But you are going to get to see him as much as you want, whenever you want."

"You guys get to spend a lot of time with me, I promise," Chris said, "your mommy and I want what's absolutely best for you guys, and that's what we're trying to do here."

"Yeah," Jessica agreed, "you guys are the most important things in the world to us, and this has nothing to do with you guys. You are still the three things we love most in the entire universe."

"Okay," Cheyenne and Sierra said at the same time. They were probably a little too young to fully grasp the concept of divorce, but it might make the transition a little easier on them. Ash was a little confused as well, but he just nodded silently because he didn't know what else to do. It wasn't what he expected to hear, and he wasn't sure what the appropriate response was supposed to be.

"There's something else though," Chris said, "I've become really good friends with Stephanie McMahon, I'm not sure if you guys remember her, but you've met her briefly, she works with me."

"I think I remember," Ash said.

"Well, she has two little girls, their oldest, Aurora, is the same age as you guys," Chris looked towards the twins, "and Stephanie and I thought it would be really cool if you guys came up there and you could meet her daughters, and maybe we could all get to know each other."

"And when you come back, there's someone that I would love you to meet as well," Jessica said. When she and Chris talked earlier, they thought it best to introduce the kids to the man Jessica was seeing. It was still awkward, of course, but if they were ever to get on with their lives, they couldn't keep secrets, not anymore.

"Okay," Sierra said, "Daddy, can we be friends with her?"

"I would love it if you could be friends with her."

"Are there any boys?" Ash asked hopefully.

"Well, Stephanie doesn't have any boys, but her brother, Shane, has a son, Declan, your age, and he's going to be up there too, maybe you could hang out with him," Chris told him, and this perked Ash right up. "I was hoping we could go tomorrow, how does that sound?"

"Cool," Ash said, "do you know if he likes to play hockey?"

"I'm not sure, but we can definitely ask," Chris smiled at him. "I really think you guys will like one another, and we're going to really have a blast with each other. Stephanie is really cool, and you're going to like her, she's really nice."

"I guess," Ash said, "can we go play now?"

"Yeah, go ahead," Chris said. Ash ran away as soon as Chris said yes, presumably to go to the playroom, Cheyenne and Sierra hung around, finding their coloring books on the coffee table, and deciding they both wanted to color. Chris looked to Jessica. "I don't think they get it."

"It's okay, with time, they'll understand, and we'll make it easy for them, as easy as we can," Jessica told him, reaching out and grabbing his hand. "It's strange to be at the end, isn't it? Remember the beginning?"

He did remember it, "It was good. We were good."

She smiled wistfully, her thoughts obviously traveling back in time to when things were simpler, "They were, but maybe the future is going to be even better for the both of us. I do love you, Chris, I always will, but it was time. It was just time for the both of us."

"It was," Chris agreed, "I'm glad you're making this easy for me."

"Ditto," she told him, "so you and Stephanie, what happened there?"

"Well…you see, we were in the production room…"


	22. Chapter 22

A/N: Thanks for all the reviews, reads, faves, whatever, hope you enjoy the chapter, reviews are welcome! :)

* * *

"Okay, you guys, I really want you to be on your best behavior while we're here, okay?"

"But Dad, aren't we just going to go play?" Ash asked, looking up at the house in front of him. He thought his house was big, but this house was _big_. It was bigger than any house he'd ever seen in his life. He'd thought it was a hotel at first, but his dad said that this is where Stephanie lived.

"Yes, but I just…you know, it's always good to make a good first impression, and to do that, you have to be on your best behavior. I want…I want things to go well. I like Stephanie a lot, and I just want you guys to like her too."

"We will, Daddy," Cheyenne responded sweetly, her head bobbing up and down as she nodded, her ponytail flying up and down. "We gets to play with her girls."

"You do," Chris smiled, "and Ash, Stephanie invited her nephew over so you have someone to play with as well. I know you probably wouldn't have wanted to spend your entire day around four girls."

"Not really," Ash made a face. He liked his sisters, but they could get annoying sometimes, and he could only imagine how much four girls would annoy him. "Dad, are we going to live here now?"

"No," Chris shook his head, "but in the future, some things might happen, and I might come to live up here, and if that happens, you guys would be able to come whenever you want, but that's not going to happen right now. Right now, we're just going to go inside, you guys can have as much fun as you want, and we're going to barbeque for dinner."

"Fun!" Sierra chirped.

"I think so, but best behavior," he pointed at each one of his children, who each nodded in turn. He smiled at them, leaning forward to press kisses to each cheek before he stood up and ushered them to the door. Stephanie must have been anticipating their entrance because the door opened almost as soon as stepped onto the porch. Murphy was securely in her left arm, her face pressed against Stephanie's collarbone.

"Hey, you guys, I'm so glad you could make it!" Stephanie said, glancing up at Chris with a hopeful look. "We've been waiting for you. You all look so beautiful and handsome today."

"What do we say, guys?" Chris prompted them.

"Thank you," they droned out in unison.

"You're welcome," Stephanie moved aside. "Come in, come in."

Stephanie had gathered Aurora and Shane's son, Declan, (his other son had stayed at home) in the foyer and now it was almost like a face-off. The two of them and Chris's kids just standing there. They all stood across from each other, eyeing each other critically. Stephanie and Chris let them look at each other for a moment, assessing each other like they were all predators trying to figure out who the prey was. They knew that the girls would be young enough to where friendship might be easy, but she didn't know about Ash and Declan.

"Well, I guess some introductions are in order," Stephanie stepped in. "Aurora, Declan, these are Chris's kids, Ash, Cheyenne, and Sierra."

"You look the same," Aurora pointed out to Cheyenne and Sierra. "Mommy, they look same person. Are they one person?'

Stephanie laughed and knelt next to her daughter, "No, sweetheart, Cheyenne and Sierra are twins, that means they were born at the same time, and they're identical twins, which means they look alike, but they're not the same person."

"Oh," Aurora whispered, "you look the same."

"I know," Cheyenne said, "but my name Cheyenne."

"I'm Si-Si," Sierra said.

"Do you like ponies?" Aurora asked them.

"Mmm, no," Cheyenne said and Aurora frowned, she really liked ponies, and she'd hoped they would like ponies too. But that was okay, she had a lot of stuff to play with. "Who's that?" Cheyenne pointed at Murphy.

"This is my other daughter, Murphy."

"She's a baby," Sierra said, "Daddy, I no wanna play with a baby."

"It's okay, she's pretty tired anyways," Stephanie said.

"Do you like coloring?" Aurora asked.

"No, we don't feel like it," Sierra said, looking at her sister, who nodded. Aurora eyed them suspiciously. What _did _they like? And she was still a little wary of how alike they looked. It was strange to her small mind, which hadn't ever been exposed to the idea of twins, not any that could remember at least.

"Do you gots dress-up?" Cheyenne asked.

"Yeah, dress-ups is fun," Sierra agreed.

"Uh huh, I got lots and lots!" Aurora said. Dressing up was fun, but she rarely got to do it because Murphy was too little to play, and her friends didn't come over often enough to play dress-up all the time. "You wanna see?"

"Yeah!" Cheyenne said as Aurora reached forward and grabbed her hand. Then she grabbed Sierra's hand.

"Wow, you ares two people!" Aurora said once she grabbed both their hands. Chris and Stephanie laughed as they watched Aurora's wonder at being able to touch both of them, like one of Chris's daughter had been a hologram this entire time in order to trick her. The three of them scurried down the hall to where Chris presumed their playroom was.

"There's a playground out back if you two want to go back there," Stephanie suggested to the two older boys, "D brought over some kickballs and things if you want to go outside."

"Cool, sure," Ash nodded.

"Come on," Declan gestured for him to follow him outside. "I got this new kickball the other day so it's super bouncy, it's fun, and my Auntie Stephanie has a playground that's fun even though Aurora and Murphy are still too little for it."

"I know, we have one at my house, but the babies can't go on it," Ash responded as Declan laughed. He could sympathize since he had a younger brother as well. Their laughter echoed from outside as Stephanie and Chris followed them.

"The girls should be okay in the playroom, it's completely child-proofed to the max," Stephanie said as she eyed Ash and Declan outside. Declan had found his kickball and was showing Ash how bouncy it was. "That was easy."

"They're all under ten, at that age, I don't think the teasing fully registers yet," Chris leaned forward and kissed her softly. "I've been waiting to do that since I saw you, but I didn't know how the kids would react, I figure we'll have to ease into the physical displays of affection."

"I agree," she nodded.

"So how did you get your house back?" Chris wondered, looking around. "I figured Paul would put up barbed wire or something, maybe install a complex security system with lasers…"

"Well, he decided it would be good if he went to Texas to visit Shawn," Stephanie said, "which I didn't object to because maybe Shawn can actually talk some sense into him. If anyone can do it, it's him. So I'm here for the weekend before I start to look for another place."

"Makes sense," Chris said, "so you're giving him the house?"

"I don't think he wants the house, we'll probably put it on the market, split it down the middle once it's sold," she said, looking around, "I mean, I do love this house, but I just feel a little stifled by it now. The only reason I'd want to keep it is because the girls don't know anything else. I mean, I brought them both home from the hospital to this house."

Chris watched as she looked down at her daughter cradled in her arms. "You wouldn't have to sell it."

"I wouldn't feel comfortable being here," Stephanie said, "but hey, new beginnings are good as well. Besides, I think we both deserve that after the disaster that has been the past few days. Sometimes, I swear, it feels like we're the craziest people on the planet for thinking that everything is suddenly going to get better."

"It's not right away, but it will," he told her, hugging her and pulling her and Murphy into his arms. He kissed the top of her head. "Today is just the start, we get through today in one piece and we're one step closer."

"Mommy!" Aurora yelled, running into the room, the train of her princess dress following behind her. She ran to Stephanie, barreling into her leg as she looked up at Stephanie with a pout on her face.

"What's wrong, Rora?" Stephanie asked.

"I don't want to play with them anymore," Aurora cried.

"Why not, sweetie?" Stephanie asked, biting her lip as she sent a glance to Chris. This was not how this day was supposed to go.

"'Cause I don't knows who is who," Aurora said, "I don't know, they look the same! Mommy, tell them to get new faces."

Stephanie laughed as Chris knelt down beside her, "Hey, Rora, you want to know how to tell them apart today?"

"How?" she asked.

"Cheyenne is wearing the green shirt, and Si-Si is wearing the pink one," he told her, "I'm sure you know your colors, and all you have to do is remember that and you'll know who is who. If you get to be friends with them, you'll get to know how they are and then you won't be confused."

"Okay," Aurora said, "I do likes playing with them. They're nice!"

She ran off again, yelling and screaming as she flew back into the playroom. "You're great with her."

"Like I haven't dealt with ornery preschoolers?" Chris scoffed. "I have two of them, two of them who share a room, so trust me, I've dealt with my fair share of tantrums. They're kids, you just have to kind of deal with them."

"I just want them all to get along."

"Mommy!" Aurora yelled again, running into the room as she did so. This time Cheyenne and Sierra ran in with her. They were all decked out in various dress-up outfits, Aurora was a princess while Cheyenne looked like a bride and Sierra as a old-time pilot, complete with goggles on her face. "Cheyenne and Si-Si are gonna sleep over, bye!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, what?" Stephanie asked as she stepped on the train of her daughter's dress. "What's this about spending the night?"

"They said they wanted to stay, so I says okay," Aurora shrugged.

"Well, you should have asked me. We don't know if it's okay for them to stay over, I mean, we didn't ask their daddy or anything," Stephanie gave a look to Chris. They hadn't planned for everyone to stay the night. Chris booked a hotel close by, but actually having them here, if they were here, Chris would stay, and well, Chris would _stay_.

She didn't know the implications of what that meant yet. She and Chris hadn't been intimate, and she hadn't planned for them to be intimate tonight. If he spent the night as well, where would she put him, would he want to stay with her? Would she want him to stay with her? There were still so many things, but then, on the other hand, the kids were here, and they couldn't do anything with the kids here.

Plus, the whole point of this time together was to try and bring the two families together gradually, and it was a good thing the girls wanted to be around each other, and Ash and Declan were still playing kickball around the backyard, their shouts joyful and fun. If Chris stayed the night, they could play games, get to know each other better, and show all their kids how things could be, how things were _going_ to be. Chris was in her life now, he was her choice, and that meant his kids, and she wanted that.

"I know we cans, can't we, Mommy?" Aurora asked her, giving her a face. Stephanie looked at her and sighed. They were getting to know each other, this could be good. She looked to Chris, and he shrugged, leaving it up to her.

"Okay, you can," Stephanie told her with a smile.

It was going to be an interesting night.


	23. Chapter 23

"Wow, when you say that you'll take care of the set-up, I didn't realize you would _take care_ of the set-up, this is amazing."

"It was nothing," Stephanie said, taking a step back to look at her handiwork. After settling on what they were going to do for the evening, Stephanie sent Chris to the store to get supplies for the evening while she set up the large living room for six children (Declan included). By the time Chris cam back with everything, the living room was set for a sleepover.

Actually, it was probably more than set for a sleepover. Stephanie worked magic apparently because the room looked so cozy and perfect, he kind of wanted to lay down in it. She'd gathered every pillow and blanket in the house, spreading them out all over the floor, moving the couches back and the coffee table was completely gone. There were large sleeping bags there too, enough for more than one person, and he figured that there would be some sharing tonight, but that was okay, the girls were all getting along, and Ash and Declan were having a blast together.

Chris took the bags to the kitchen and set them down. Stephanie started grabbing boxes and bags out of them and setting them on the counter. "I have to say, you did a great job in there, the kids are going to love it."

"Yeah, I know, that's why I sent them out," Stephanie said. "The girls and I have actually done this before."

"No Paul?"

"He kind of thought it was girly so he didn't participate, but it was okay because it gave me and the girls some girl time. They know what's coming tonight, at least a little bit. That's why I had you get what you did."

"I was a little stumped by the list," he said, still taking things out of the bags.

"What I like to do is an appetizer for dinner thing. And it works great when you have a lot of different people around because there's something for everyone. We just make everything, whole platters of stuff, and we pig out and eat, and then at the end of the night, we make s'mores on the fire pit we have outside, and it's summer, and a beautiful night, so it'll be a fun way to end the evening."

"So you really are just Super Woman, right?"

"I don't try to be, I just…I love my daughters, and I want them to be happy," Stephanie said, "every once in a while, it's nice to indulge, to get away from it all. Things are going to be hard tomorrow and the day after, but if we can have one night where it's just fun, it'll help."

"And smart," Chris told her, "what did I do to deserve this?"

"Hit a video button with your butt," she answered and he laughed, coming around the counter and kissing her. Stephanie kissed him back briefly before she pulled away sheepishly. "We probably shouldn't kiss yet, not with all the kids around, I don't think they'd understand."

"Oh yeah," he said, giving a furtive glance around, but the kids weren't around. They were all in the playroom together except for Murphy, who was in her playpen in the living room, happily toiling away with her toys. "Sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry about, I just think we really need to ease into that one. They're not going to quite get it yet, but they will, it'll get easier, and if this night goes well, I think the transition for them will be even easier. Paul will hate it, but what can you do?"

"I don't want to replace him, that was never the intention."

"He knows that…or he will," Stephanie shook her head as she sighed, "but no more talk about that. That was the last time we're going to mention him tonight. This is going to be a drama-free zone. So come on, we've got a million appetizers to get heated up before we start in on the movies."

Chris helped Stephanie cook all the food and put them on separate plates. When they were all ready, she called the kids into the living room. They ooh'ed and ahh'ed over the set-up before settling in for the evening. Stephanie put on Toy Story, a favorite and something they could all agree to watch, and watched as the kids started to devour all the different treats in front of them. She tried to monitor food intake, but little, grubby hands were hard to keep track of enough to keep someone from grabbing more.

They made a good dent in the food, and Stephanie and Chris put the leftovers in the kitchen while the children continued to watch the movie. Ash and Declan were on the floor with their backs to the couch while Aurora and the girls were cuddled on one sleeping bag, lying on their stomachs watching the movie. Stephanie had Murphy cuddled up to her on one couch and Chris was sitting on the other side of it.

"Mommy?" Aurora looked over her shoulder at her mother.

"Yes, Rora?"

"Are you going to marry Chris?"

Stephanie's eyes widened as she stared at her daughter, "Um, Rora, what would make you say that?"

"Because then Cheyenne and Si-Si could live here with us, right?" Aurora said, which made the twins give their attention to Stephanie as well. Even Declan and Ash were looking over now. "I want them to live here."

"Ooh, could we?" Cheyenne asked. "That'd be fun and we could have sleepovers every night!"

"I like that!" Sierra added, grinning over at her sister.

"Well," Stephanie looked to Chris, but he just shrugged at her, leaving her on this island alone. "Rora, it's…well, it's a little complicated right now, but there is a chance we can't rule that out, alright?"

"Really?" Aurora asked, shocked that this was actually something her mother was considering. She just wanted to throw it out there because it was a possibility and to get the girls and Ash used to it now would probably be the best thing.

"Daddy, really, we can come and stay here and live her?" Sierra asked eagerly. Suddenly, the movie was completely forgotten about, and this discussion was really happening. Chris sat up from where he'd been sitting and he faced his children. Even Ash forwent the movie and was staring up at his father, searching for answers to questions he didn't even know to ask.

"There's a chance we might," Chris told her and his other two children. "You see, like I said, Stephanie and I are going to be spending more time together, and because of that, well, you're going to spend more time together. I have to talk to your mom—"

"And I have to talk to Daddy," Stephanie added.

"And after that, we'll see, we might not all live together all the time, but at the same time, there may come a time when we do live together," Chris told them, trying to explain it in the simplest terms.

"Does that mean you and Stephanie are boyfriend and girlfriend?" Ash wondered. "Is that why you and Mommy aren't going to be together?"

"No, that's not the reason why, there are a lot of reasons why Mommy and I aren't going to be together, none of which are about you and your sisters, but me and Mommy, we just didn't get along anymore."

"Kind of like Daddy and me," Stephanie explained to Aurora. "Sometimes grown-ups think they're going to get along, but it turns out they don't. Sometimes, it's just nobody's fault, but how things work out. Chris and I, well, we like each other, and we want to see if we more than like each other—"

"You mean if you _love_?" Cheyenne giggled, which made Sierra giggle, and Aurora started giggling just to fit in. Stephanie looked over at Chris and gave him a tentative smile. They weren't in love, but it was coming, and it was approaching them at a speed that neither one could fathom.

She needed time with Chris to fall in love with him, time she would get, and she needed time to heal from the wounds her marriage's failure was sure to inflict, but she could see ahead. She could see the days ahead when his arms would be the ones she sought out when she needed or wanted something. She could see him being the person she brought her problems to, she could see him for all the days. It was always a startling revelation, that one moment where you begin to realize the depth of your feelings for someone. Stephanie had time to figure it all out, that was something she was given as a gift, time to figure out what she might feel for Chris, but it was already pretty clear where this would be headed.

"Well, yeah, if we love each other," Chris said slowly, looking furtively over at Stephanie.

"I don't mind living here," Ash shrugged, looking around, "it's a nice house."

"Well, if I lived up here, I would probably have my own place for a while," Chris told him, "and if your mom wanted, she could move up here, but we haven't talked about it, it's still up in the air. There's a lot of stuff we have to talk about, me and your mom and Stephanie and her husband. Right now, we're just seeing if we like spending time with each other."

"I like Declan," Ash said, looking over at him and nodding, "You're nice."

"I like you too," Declan smiled.

"We're best friends!" Aurora announced as Cheyenne and Sierra agreed eagerly. "We like each other the best!"

"I do like her the best," Cheyenne told her father, "I want to live here forever and ever and watch movies forever."

"I think we're getting a little bit ahead of ourselves," Stephanie said, looking to Chris for support, but he was staring at her. She stared back at him, which seemed to shake him from his reverie, and she wondered what he was thinking about.

What Chris was thinking about was everything. He was thinking about how this was all going to be worth it in the end. "Yeah, just a little bit. We're just having a sleepover tonight, and you guys get to have fun."

"How about we do our s'mores right now?" Stephanie told them. "You guys finish up this movie, and Chris and I will get everything ready in the kitchen."

After the kids went back to the movie, Chris followed Stephanie into the kitchen. Stephanie turned to Chris and smiled, "It's going better than I expected. I mean, I guess I thought they'd get along, but I think they're more on board with this than anyone else in our lives."

"It's because they don't know any better, they think that they just get to live with their new friends," Chris leaned against the counter, "it's going to take getting used to."

"What about your kids? I don't want to tear you away from them."

"Honestly, I think Jessica may be willing to move. We're on amicable terms right now, and I don't know, it's a thought, but either way, I'll see my kids, I'll make sure of it somehow, some way. Don't worry about that right now, s'mores, right?"

"Kids are just so adaptable, I don't know how they do it," Stephanie glanced at the living room though she couldn't immediately see any of the kids. "They just go with the flow while everything else is so complicated. Why can't Paul act like them?"

"Because he stands more to lose," Chris said, "the kids see instant friends, Paul sees an instant loss of power."

Stephanie started to gather the s'mores ingredients. "You're right. I hope we called his bluff right though."

"There's no way he doesn't fold," Chris shook his head, "he's smarter than that."

"God, I hope so."


End file.
